Welcome to Cultural Assets Insider for March 24th, 2022 – FREE Edition.
Each week we give you the scoop on undervalued, mispriced and hidden gems in Alternative Investing.
Table of Contents
Cultural Assets performance in 2022
No doubt it’s been a tough year for cultural assets across fractional marketplaces as they’ve given back nearly all their gains from 2021 over the last six weeks or so.
Could last week’s positive movement be the bottom of the market? Or just another dead cat bounce?
Last Week in Cultural Assets
Fractional secondary markets
Last week, I said we were probably near a bottom, and viola, the market is up 3.4% with green arrows nearly across the board.
The five biggest winners were all from the Rally platform, and they comprised a toy (GI Joe), two guitars, and two Apple items. Number six was also from Apple, in point of fact, with a modest 5.8% gain.
Most of the nonsensical losers came from the Otis platform on the back of their acquisition by Public. Some definite opportunities there.
Auctions
Last week we highlighted the Steve Jobs / Apple / Atari auction at RR.
If you’ve invested in the signed MacWorld magazine on Rally, you may want to consider selling your shares. A very similar lot (minus the Woz signature) didn’t hit its reserve.
We recommended this one when it IPO’ed, because Apple/Jobs assets have been crushing it on Rally, but we’re going to reverse this now. The asset’s not funded on the platform yet, so you may want to consider doing the same.
The biggest winner was a Pong Home Edition prototype, which went for $270k despite estimates of $20k+. It came directly from the collection of Pong creator Allan Alcorn.
This Week in Cultural Assets
Fractional IPOs
Two fractional IPOs this week from Rally.
’18 SUPREME PINBALL MACHINE
- Market Cap: $60k
- Inferred Value: $45k
- Drop Details: 3/25/22 on Rally
- Our view: [INSIDERS ONLY]
’71 THE GODFATHER SCREENPLAY
- Market Cap: $13k
- Inferred Value: $10k
- Drop Details: 3/24/22 on Rally
- Our view: [INSIDERS ONLY]
Auctions
A huge meteorite auction is kicking off at Christie’s. While you can buy shards of meteorites quite easily on eBay and the like, the specimens here are breathtaking.
We’ve written about investing in meteorites before and even had a podcast.
While the collection includes pieces of Mars and the moon, it’s headlined by an 85lb chunk of Chondrite – the largest stone meteorite to ever come out of Brazil. It entered the earth’s atmosphere at over 12 miles per second (43,200 mph), which turned the chunk’s exterior into molten lava.
The second notable lot is an uber-rare pallasite, which is is sometimes called a “gemstone from another world.” They’re formed when differentiated asteroids (those that have been thermally altered to form two separate compounds) separate into crystals and a nickel-iron matrix. There are fewer than fifty known pallasites on earth.
Both the above are estimated to sell for over $130k.
If you’re going for aesthetics, though, my pick is this extraterrestrial crystal ball, which can be had for around $50k.
Sticking with the rock theme, Heritage has brought us a rare collection of investment-grade guitars led by an ESP KH-2 electric guitar signed by Metallica.
If classic rock is more your thing, you can get your hands on a 1970 Gibson Les Paul gifted by Eric Clapton to Greg Allman. It was his main stage guitar for five years and has been thoroughly photo-matched.
And now, for something completely different
I didn’t know that Richard Gere had a photo collection until today, but he does, and they’re quite stunning.
He’s auctioning several off at Sotheby’s this and next week, and they’re worth a look even if you don’t have $15k to drop on a photo.
