Rare bottles of whisky fetch £4,000

Two bottles of whisky distilled 70 years ago were snapped up for thousands of pounds at an auction in Montrose on Saturday.

Taylor’s Auction Room was extremely busy with huge interest in the room and fierce online bidding before the rare Bunnahabhain bottles fetched £2,200 and £1,800, respectively.

The pure Islay malt was distilled in 1947 and bottled by Matthew Gloag & Son Ltd of Perth in 1975 as a 28-year-old.

To have two bottles of such a sought after whisky going under the hammer was described as very unusual and they were eventually sold to two buyers from down south.

An early 20th Century oak tantalus that has three decanters which have a note indicating that one of them contains the same Bunnahabhain also went for £200.

Saleroom manager Jonathan Taylor said collecting rare whisky was a fantastic investment with the value of many people’s collections going up 10-fold in recent years.

He said: “A lot of these guys have made a fantastic investment – it’s a bit of fun and if it all goes horribly wrong you still have the whisky to drink!”

There was also a lot of interest in the auction of over 30 paintings by Arbroath artist Irene Halliday who was elected to the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1955.

Picture: Paul Reid. Auction assistant Lisa Turberfield with the vintage whisky which was sold for a combined total of £4,000 on Saturday.