No. 3 Hanyu Ichiro Card Series – sold for USD 917,000
Hanyu Ichiro Card series is arguably the crown jewel of all Japanese whisky collection. Consisting of 54 ‘cards’ – four sets of Hearts, Diamonds, Spades and Clubs plus two Jokers, the full set was bottled by the grandson of the now closed Hanyu distillery founder. After the distillery’s closure in 2000, Ichiro Akuto, grandson of Isouji Akuto, stepped in and secured the remaining 400 casks and personally selected the drams to be bottled for each ‘card’ released between 2005 and 2014.
In 2015, Bonhams became the first auction house to sell the 54-bottle full card series, which fetched HK$3,797,500 at the time, setting a world record for the most expensive whisky lot sold at auction.
In 2019, the auction house broke its own record with another full set sold for HK$7.19 million (US$917,000) to a female Asian collector, almost doubling its previous price.
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