£20K for a handbag? Call in the tumbrils
Every couple of months I get a catalogue for Christie’s jewellery sale. This is not because I am a regular in the sale room but because when I was looking for something that I could afford to buy for my wife on our ruby wedding I asked for a catalogue of its next sale and I’m still getting them.
They are, in their way, a fascinating read. The catalogue for Wednesday’s sale was particularly so. A quarter of the booklet was devoted to a sale of handbags, mostly by Hermés, at eye-popping estimated prices.
Who, for God’s sake, would pay between £20,000 and £25,000 for a ‘fauve’ matt brown crocodile ‘Birkin’ bag, whatever that may be. To me it looks just like an ordinary handbag, smart, but £20,000 plus? They’ve got to be kidding. On the facing page is another crocodile ‘Birkin’ bag, described as ‘exceptional’. At £16,000 bottom estimate that must be the understatement of the year.
True, there were other items for as ‘little’ as £500 (an evening bag by Gucci and a ‘Rio Pochette’ by, yes, our old friend Hermés) but the BOTTOM estimates for 29 bags was £157,000, an average of more than £5,000 each. For TOP estimates add about 20%.
Isn’t there something obscene about people being prepared to pay this sort of money for a handbag while others are losing their homes for less?
Apparently Posh Becks (I don’t know her real name so I have to use the Sun-given one) has 100 Hermés bags in all shades.
It’s probably lucky that the unemployed are unlikely to see this catalogue; it could be a ‘let them eat cake’ moment. One would hate to see Posh and her ludicrous husband perched with a few other Hermés buyers on their way to Tyburn in a tumbril, wouldn’t one?
What’s that? You’d pay good money to see it. Come to think of it, so would I. Maybe they would put out a Hermés bag for the heads to drop into.