Pricing Pharma Bro’s Wu-Tang album
Prison-bound Shkreli paid $2M, but rare find’s history is worrisome
Martin Shkreli, the disgraced former pharmaceuticals executive, was sentenced to seven years in prison for securities fraud in Brooklyn on Friday. Now the government will have its pick of a number of his assets to satisfy the $7.36-million (U.S.) judgment against him.
There is a brokerage account with $5 million in cash, shares in his company Vyera Pharmaceuticals, even a Picasso.
And then there is an item that has been the subject of worldwide intrigue: the sole copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album Once
Upon a Time in Shaolin, packaged in a custom silver-and-nickel case and accompanied by a 174-page leather-bound book. It may be the most famous album ever kept in the possession of just one person.
But what is it worth?
The original price, set when Shkreli bought the album at auction three years ago, has never been publicly confirmed, though it has been reported as $2 million. If seized, the album would most likely be studied by government-appointed appraisers and offered at a public auction, said Charles A. Intriago, a former federal prosecutor who is an expert in financial crimes.
Determining the market value for Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, however, would be difficult, according to several experts in music memorabilia. Among the complications are the restrictions that the Wu-Tang Clan placed on the original sale and the bizarre twists in Shkreli’s stewardship. The experts all doubted that the album could yield anywhere near the $2 million it was apparently worth to Shkreli.
For an item whose worth depends on its uniqueness and safekeeping, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin has a history that would probably worry any potential collector, said Jeff Gold, a top dealer in rock memorabilia through his store Recordmecca.
Have any copies been made? How has it been stored? How many people have heard it? All those questions could weigh on a sale. But Gold said a greater concern was that last September, Shkreli offered the album on eBay, drawing bids of just more than $1 million — half what he had supposedly paid for it. Shkreli was jailed in the midst of the auction and the sale was never consummated, but the low price and the cancelled sale mean the album could now be tainted.
“The bloom is off the rose,” Gold said.
The low eBay price and the cancelled sale mean the album could now be tainted