"Smoking out the winners," Financial Times' How to Spend it, Dec 9

[Puros Y Vino]

Yeah, that's fair enough, and I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

I guess it rankles when stuff becomes hideously more than it's original worth.

There's a great whisky shop on Old Compton street in Soho (London) where you can buy The Macallan from 1900, for £24000.00, I cannot get to grips with that, when some people not far from us have no clean water to drink.

Whereas, if I buy a cigar now for £15, and sell it in 10 years time for £115, I can live with that.

I agree. Prices on some things are just crazy. That Macallan from 1900, it's steep price has something to do the rarity. Pure supply / demand. Consider it a drinkable work of art. Just don't drink it. On that note, I recommend reading the "Billionaires' Vinegar". It's a great take on the high end wine collecting subculture.

I totally see your point about how whiskey can go for so much yet most people don't have clean drinking water. I'd say that is a failure/complacency of government that has allowed "free enterprise" to over ride what I'll call the "common good". I live in Canada. My drinking water is clean & "free" because my taxes and the taxes of the generations before me invested in infrastructure that benefited everyone. They saw value in that. Whereas some countries see dollar signs in selling people bottled water which ironically our water utility sells at a profit.

[aavkk]

everyone has different tastes. I have cigars that I may decide down the road I enjoyed more when they were younger even though they were originally purchased to smoke. However, there may be folks out there who would give their left arm for these very same cigars and willing to pay a premium down the road for them. I may sell those cigars to fund the purchase of different cigars. When I started in this hobby I bought lots of boxes, many of them I still have cigars from and truly love. Others I decided weren't to my tastes so I sold them to buy more of what I loved. As for predicting the future increase in value of cigars its mostly due to the quality and somewhat due to exclusivity and limited availability. Of all investments its pretty damn easy especially with the collective voices of the boards to determine the overall quality of the cigar and its future investment potential.

[cigcars]

Plus, where would we regular Joes & Janes go about selling our beloved stash anyway?? Christie's auction house?? I did check into the particulars of placing some valuables on that type of site...you have to have so much pay for posting to begin with; a statement or some kind of authentication of the expected worth of the object; ad infinitum. Trading would be much easier but then I'm still iffy on even doing that with some of my items.