So, you probably heard that Jeffrey Gundlach’s house was robbed of $10 million of stuff while he was on vacation. He lost some watches, a Porsche 911 4S and some art. The Porsche and watches are like $200k at most. So, does this mean $9.8 million in art?
Cost of a new Porsche 911 4S starts at $105k new. Let’s say his used car is worth $100k. So the art is worth roughly the same as 98 Porsches.
Rare art has done really well these last few years. $10M in art isn’t hard to imagine at all. I know of some institutions that are actually allocating to art. Not sure about that move, but whatever.
I was going to say the paintings but I looked at some of them and got a headache after looking at these two - “Painting” 1950, and “Green Target” 1956. So I’m going to go with the Porsche.
I must admit that I will be extremely bored from looking at the same $1 million painting every day. I would rather have Porsches for life. Of course, I suppose if you are someone like Gundlach and have several Porsches and other cars, your utility curves probably look a lot different.
The problem is that its a lot harder to fence millions in paintings than it is a Porsche.
Isnt that the guy who had porn and bongs in his office?
Yep, but I’ve heard that all may have been planted to discredit him as he was leaving TCW. I hope not though. Only makes him more of a badass.
If dead people could ‘ROFL’, we would have a lot of laughing dead artists right now
I was thinking about that also. How do you sell a stolen painting? The buyer has to know the identity of the painting, or else, they will not pay a lot of money for it. I think most likely, the paintings are held for ransom. That is, pay money or you will never see it again. Otherwise, there is an eccentric burglar that hoards a lot of precious art.
The black market for art is huge. I remember a Dateline or 20/20 or something on it when The Scream was stolen (again). Most of the time authorities think there are already buyers lined up. Other times the burglers have fences already in place.
It’s possible these guys that robbed Gundlach were a couple of bozos that got lucky, but I think it’s more likely they’re career guys that have connections to move such goods without much trouble. Why risk it otherwise?
Ransom is probably the best way to make some cash.
For the budding art theives out there, Scream is on display at Moma beginning in October. I think it’s valued at more than 100mn. I don’t think you could sell it, but it would be cool to have it hanging in your apartment.
i take the paintings…porche values depreciate…paintings may also depreciate but my estimate say it would be a lot less than porches.
I think porches can add value to a home if nicely constructed. We should get CFAvsMBA’s opinion on this.
Cars obviously have negative NPV, unless you are buying limited edition 1970s Ferraris or something. I was talking about paintings vs. cars from more of a consumption perpective.
I would take the cars. Seems easier to sell to consumer due to much wider appeal than fine art.
prob get more ass with the cars, so i am going with the cars
I’d sell the porsche and paintings to buy a swimming pool full of gold coins - scrooge mcduck style.
This. If the guys were pros, the art is already hanging on the wall of a very private gallery.
As to OP’s question, I’d take the cars. I’m too much of a schlub to appreciate fine art. Give me a $25 landscape from Home Goods and I’m happy.
What if the paintings were never stolen in the first place and he will receive a huge insurance payment, but in reality he took them to his ultra-secret vault in Eastern Europe that no one knows its exact location? I could see it if you ask me.
Maybe DoubleLine is secretly a huge Ponzi scheme. Don’t tell me those 98% percentile returns are not suspicious. He might be raising money so he can secretly disappear before people find out.