HERMES BIRKIN BAG: Prices, why it's the best investment & can you buy one?

The Hermes Birkin: The best investment on earth that you can’t buy! Welcome to the next in my handbags as investments series and to probably one of the best investments you could ever make. Not just when it comes to handbags but across the board. If you haven’t watched any of the other videos in this series be sure to hit subscribe and go and check them out!

1) I truly believe that The Hermes Birkin stands alone when it comes to an investment - not just as a handbag but other than a few other premium luxury goods such as Ferraris and that is simply because if you purchase one at £7k to today you could nearly sell it for double tomorrow. There is just a slight catch to this wonderful investment and it is the pure reason that it really is such a good investment and that is 95% of the people that try to buy one will not be able to.

2) NUMBERS: Before we delve further into why you cannot get one - let’s have a quick look at some numbers over the years. Most expensive bag ever sold at auction. Would you rather have a house or a handbag? If you have to choose, you can't afford the Hermès white Himalaya crocodile diamond Birkin bag that Christie's just unloaded for $379,261, making it the most expensive handbag ever sold at auction. Although the Birkin bag was first introduced in 1984, it didn’t take off until the mid-to-late 1990s, at the dawn of the so-called "It-Bag" era. A recent study - linked below - found that Birkin bags outperformed the S&P500 and gold over a 35 year period from 1980 - 2015. S&P 500 is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies by market value. Not only that but there is only an upward trend with prices. Unlike other stocks shares and gold. In conclusion, historical data along with current indicators show that investing in the S&P 500 or in gold commodities brings with it a huge amount of risk and returns are heavily influenced on external factors out of the investor’s control. In comparison, an investment in a Hermes Birkin bag has shown to be safe and steady over the last 35 years, with all current indicators showing that this trend is set to continue. In 2016, the safest and least volatile investment market of the three is certainly Hermes Birkin handbags.

3) HOW THEY MAINTAIN THE PRICES Hermès refuses to release the number of Birkin bags that it manufactures each year, limiting the elusive supply to an elite group of customers. Although Hermès makes an estimated 70,000 Birkins a year, prices on the secondary market can be 50% above the retail price. Hermès’s growth is limited by the scarcity of high-quality raw materials and of craftsmen, who take two years to train up, points out Mr Albaladejo. *Economist - beauty and the beasts. Thanks to this tight control, the brand has succeeded in maintaining the bag’s reputation as one of the world’s most desirable and unobtainable luxury items.

4) CAN YOU BUY ONE? Daily mail article sent “normal women to different Hermes stores around London” none of which were successful. Very careful about who carries their brand. Not just influential people but people that are true fans of the label and will not take advantage of their status. This is similar to Ferraris - having spoken with a lady who works in luxury car sales - she told me about a similar list for limited edition luxury cars. They open up the opportunity to buy for true collectors.

Numbers article: https://baghunter.com/pages/hermes-birkin-values-research-study

Economist - 70,000 bags made each year: https://www.economist.com/special-report/2014/12/11/beauty-and-the-beasts

Daily mail article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3556882/The-bag-not-allowed-buy-covetable-snooty-stores-sell-list-happened-sent-ordinary-women-ask-Hermes-handbag.html

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