From Ferraris to fine wine, our guide to finding some other homes for your cash
COINS
THE Sovereign and the Britannia gold coins are deemed legal tender in Britain, meaning they escape capital gains tax if they rise in value.
The most recently minted Britannia is a troy ounce of 24carat gold and has a face value of £100. A Sovereign is 0.235 troy ounces of 22-carat gold and has a face value of £1. However, their real value goes up and down with the gold price. A sovereign is currently trading at about £235. Th The Britannia, left, is a modern coin first issued in 1987. O Originally minted as 22-carat pieces they started to be produced in 24carat gold in 2013. A Britannia can be p purchased for ab about £990. Go Gold coins should not be confused with the items tha that collectors amass. However, numismatics – the collection of coins – has seen the value of 200 of the most rare British coins grow almost 200 per cent in the past decade. This is an average annual return of 11 per cent a year, according to coin and stamp dealer Stanley Gibbons.
WINE
THE Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 – an index that plots the fortunes of a hundred of the world’s most sought-after wines – is up in value 6 per cent this year. But over the past decade the value of this index has almost doubled.
Some wines – such as Carruades Lafite 2004, below – have seen their prices soar from about £20 a bottle to £150. About 80 per cent of the wines in the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 come from the Bordeaux region of France.
Though you can tour vineyards yourself in search of a great vintage, wine merchant connoisseurs are eager to scout the market on your behalf.
As part of their duties they go in search of ‘en primeur’ wine before it is bottled. Specialists include Farr Vintners, Justerini & Brooks, Berry Bros & Rudd and Alex Marton Fine Wines.
Fine wine merchant Alex Marton says: ‘As with most investments there is no guarantee you will make money – but prices are realistic at the moment and not over inflated, so there is no reason you should not be able to make at least modest returns over the next decade.
‘As an unregulated market, investors must be wary of buying from cold-calling salespeople.’
To benefit from the full range of tax breaks, you will never see the bottles of wine yourself. The wine is ‘bonded’ – which means it stays in temperature controlled warehouses and escapes any VAT or duty that would otherwise be paid.
You might expect to pay between £10 and £20 a year for a crate of 12 bottles to be bonded. This includes insurance against loss or damage. The wine is usually stored at least ten years before being sold.
When selling there will be no capital gains tax to pay as wine is deemed a ‘wasting asset’ by Revenue & Customs.
Merchants focus largely on the best clarets around Bordeaux. These include the five top ranked Premier Cru – first growths – offered by chateaux Haut-Brion, Lafite Rothschild, Latour, Margaux and Mouton Rothschild.
Then there are the ‘Super Second’ producers that include La Mission Haut-Brion, Montrose, Cos d’Estournel and Leoville Las Cases.
CLASSIC CARS
CLASSIC cars can bring pleasure as well as financial returns. The HAGI Top Index – which plots the value of 50 of the world’s most desirable cars – saw values rise by an average of 17 per cent last year. The index has risen by more than 200 per cent since December 2008, when it was launched by the Historic Automobile Group.
This market includes cars that cost more than £100,000 – with the likes of Aston Martin, Bugatti, Ferrari, Jaguar and Porsche being most in demand.
If you plan to invest in a classic car you should join an enthusiasts’ club. Here you will get practical advice and guidance on buying a vehicle.
Members often sell vehicles through their club – which is ideal for buyers as the vehicles tend to be well maintained.
Membership of car clubs typically costs between £30 and £60 a year. Details of such clubs can be found on the website ClassicCarList by clicking on the link ‘Out and about’.
A classic car – just like any ordinary vehicle – escapes capital gains tax when it is sold because it is deemed to be a depreciating asset, even if the value of a car has gone up over time.
Another tax break is that there is no vehicle excise duty to pay if the car was built before 1975 – coincidentally the year of the previous European referendum – as it is classified as a ‘historic vehicle’.
Pick up a car that was bought before 1960 and you can also avoid the expense of putting your car through an annual MoT test.
When budgeting, do not forget there will be maintenance costs and occasional restorations that must be paid for. Vehicles also need to be garaged to keep them in good condition.
STAMPS
THE value of the most soughtafter postage stamps has risen by 120 per cent over the past decade. But according to The Stanley Gibbons GB250 index – which plots the fortunes of the top 250 investment-grade stamps of Great Britain – this has slowed in recent months. Last year the price of these collectable stamps rose by 2 per cent.
Stamp collecting is the world’s most popular hobby, attracting an estimated 50million enthusiasts, but only a few stamps are of investment quality. Early stamps from the Victorian era tend to be among the most sought after and investment-grade stamps usually change hands for at least £200 each.
You can still buy an old Penny Black, left – the first adhesive stamp launched in 1840 – for a few pounds as they were often cropped when used. In pristine condition they fetch a small fortune.
An unused 1840 ‘VR Official’ block of four Penny Blacks with large margin blocks is valued at £250,000 by Stanley Gibbons.
Rarity is of great importance for investors and this explains why mistakes can provide the most valuable stamps of all.
Earlier this year a ‘Plate 77 Penny Red’ sold for £495,000. It is one of only five known to exist after the destruction of the printing plate on which it was made – ironically because it was not considered good quality.
One of the world’s most pricey stamps is an 1856 British Guiana one-cent magenta stamp that sold for $9.5million (£6.9million) in 2014. It was made by a local postmaster after a shipment of official stamps had been delayed.
You must pay capital gains tax on possessions such as stamps – as well as art and antiques – and any gains above the capital gains tax exemption limit of £11,100 are usually taxed at 28 per cent.