[michael_vo]

I went to a buy.

Hermes gives you 24 hours to go into the store and buy the item. Otherwise the bag goes to the next buyer on the rolodex.

Buyers call their friends and make it into an event. They’re literally giddy and excited to go. It’s like winning the lottery.

You’re ushered into a private room with nice couches, mirrors, a phone. You choose a scarf and wrap the scarf around the strap.

Buyers text their sales rep almost daily.

In a way it’s like a drop in the NFT space.

[oblio]

I'd argue it's the opposite. This is a long running model copied for NFT.

[GaryNumanVevo]

Comparing a Hermes appointment to clicking "buy" on an NFT is hilarious. Nonetheless, I've gotten three appointments, have spent around 150k EUR on bags. So far I've made $30k after VAT and US duty. No idea why Paris original Hermes bags go for so much more in the states. If I have an appointment, I'll fly round trip to Paris, buy the bags, and hold them until I go to the states. Great experience, very high class!

[1-more]

You've spent half of your highest salary on bags? Feels like a lot but I'm just some guy. What was the biggest bag balance you've had on the books? Or are you buying and flipping at most one or two at any time? When you make these trips, do you have a US buyer lined up beforehand or do you find them once you're in the US?

[nine_k]

With 20% ROI collected in a few months, after all duties, it's a good deal, even if you pay with a credit card. (You can certainly get a cheaper loan if you're the kind of person to be invited to a bag-dispensing event.)

[xhkkffbf]

Loan? I certainly hope no one is taking out a loan to do this.

Well, I guess if the resell is pretty certain, then a loan is a smart business move. But really no one should be going into debt for an item like this.

[nine_k]

Certainly, a loan was mentioned only for reselling, as a typical business loan to finance a surefire-looking deal.

[GaryNumanVevo]

1) My wife loves Paris

2) Credit card points + Travel miles

[hammyhavoc]

Are you actually Gary Numan?

[GaryNumanVevo]

I think the biggest balance I had was ~$65k at one time. I'm buying one, maybe two per trip depending on what kinds of bags collectors are looking for in the US. I don't have a buyer setup before hand, but I'm in a couple of private facebook groups that I can usually find one a few weeks before I fly to the US.

[1-more]

> a couple of private facebook groups

There's the secret sauce: you need a high trust trade network. Well this is pretty cool. I love to learn about weird informal economies, thanks!

[GaryNumanVevo]

Yep! It's very similar - albeit much smaller - market to watches, collectable vinyl records, trading cards, etc. Just easier to rely on trust and word of mouth sometimes.

[gen220]

Do you know if Hermes is OK with people purchasing with intent to immediately resell?

I think I remember reading that people have "gotten in trouble" (i.e. block-listed from future sales) for being suspected of this, but I might be confusing it with some other company.

[michael_vo]

Hermes monitors the resale websites. If they can find out the identifier then you will be banned.

[fbdab103]

That seems like an idle threat. Hermes needs a "black market" to keep the brand in circulation. Making the item feel risky acquire can add to the thrill of the chase.

Maybe if you try to buy a truckload at once, they would step in, but I doubt any consumer-level flipping is hitting their radar.

[GaryNumanVevo]

Personally, I haven't heard of it happening. Most of the market is off resale websites anyways. Now if you started a boutique trying to resell Hermes bags, then you might have an issue.

[kylehotchkiss]

How much value do these bags lose if you so little as touch them with an ungloved hand?

[GaryNumanVevo]

First appointment they have a limit, IIRC it's like 2 bags, but subsequent appointments you can buy a lot more

[morsch]

Humans of late capitalism

[oblio]

Agreed, this all seems so bizarre and frankly... decadent.

[1oooqooq]

so you're their sales rep?

[GaryNumanVevo]

No? It's a fun luxury item to flip, that can make some decent money. Rolex's used to be good to flip if you had a good rep with an AD, but now the resale market is down.

[dboreham]

Not as bad as buying a Ferrari: where you have to already own a Ferrari to be allowed to buy one.

[moomin]

A friend of mine is a true petrolhead. Loves cars. When he was in his early twenties he bought a second hand Ferrari. Drove it around for years. He sold it, for the exact same price he bought it, back the person who’d sold it him in the first place.

I wouldn’t call a Ferrari an investment, but if you love them they hold their value pretty well.

[kurthr]

Yes, but maintenance costs are very high. You can expect >$5k and typically another few $k for tires. That is true even if nothing breaks and milage is low (eg <5k mi/yr). Costs quickly go up once cars are past 20 years old due to the lack of parts. You definitely need $10-15k in an emergency fund if anything significant goes wrong (or you got sold a lemon).

So that $40-50k car price is about half of 5 years of ownership.

[elorant]

One reason they hold their value well is because they have low mileage. They’re not practical cars to use on a daily basis, not to mention maintenance costs which are quite high if you use the car often.

[jazzyjackson]

meanwhile a '93 Honda NSX recently sold for 60k showing 234,300 miles on the odo

https://carsandbids.com/auctions/3OnRAn0v/1993-acura-nsx

[huehehue]

I learned how to drive stick on an NSX.

I also wedged my skateboard in the back window when it was open, causing it to completely shatter when the owner tried to close it. Didn't appreciate what a bone-headed move that was at the time, but you've enlightened me.

[dexwiz]

Yeah but aren’t these cars big with people who do after market mods? Ferraris have to be serviced by licensed mechanics.

[prova_modena]

> Ferraris have to be serviced by licensed mechanics.

"Have to"? Says who? "Licensed"? By who?

As someone who is very close to both the "factory authorized" and "non-authorized" sides of the Ferrari service industry, this is incorrect or at best a gross oversimplification of things like warranty service or the Ferrari Classiche process.

There are a lot of misunderstandings and myths circulating about Ferrari ownership, but this is a new one to me.

[sandworm101]

Not that car. A '93 NSX today will be bought by a new-money millionaire in his 40s as a nostalgia piece, his dream car from when he was a teenager in the 90s. It will be kept as stock as reasonable. Even the photographs are designed for such a buyer. An NSX on a crisp Chicago day is the definition of 90s cool.

[neuralRiot]

> Ferraris have to be serviced by licensed mechanics.

If you’re talking about special ones like La Ferrari or some others, i can tell you that there are lots of 458 italia and California and Cali T that have been in no-name shops and still being sold without any problem.

[burningChrome]

>> not to mention maintenance costs which are quite high.

I remember watching Gas Monkey Garage where they bought a smashed Ferrari F40 for $400K. One of the funniest scenes was Richard Rawlings on the phone with the Ferrari parts dealer telling him how expensive the parts were he needed to rebuild the car with. The funniest was the juxtaposition of Richard, a guy who's used to haggling with people to get a good price on everything, and here he was being reminded that these were OEM Ferrari parts with the quip, "How much for a quarter panel? Yeah, I KNOW its a real Ferrari quarter panel!" with the standard eye roll that the cost of this was killing him.

The whole show gave a glimpse into owning one of these cars. IF something does happen to it, in order for it to be "certified" as a legit Ferrari, you have use all OEM parts and have a person from Ferrari oversee the repairs. The whole show was a lesson in the amount of time and money needed to own one of these - even if you don't drive it very much.

Here's an article that detailed the whole process: https://www.hotcars.com/what-happened-to-ferrari-f40-from-fa...

[elorant]

There's a very popular video from a dissatisfied owner who talks about all the maintenance nightmare of owning a Ferrari.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JgeU3X-2AM

[xmprt]

The cost of a Ferrari isn't in the car. It's in the insurance, maintenance, and stress of anything happening to the car. I for one would hate to have a luxury vehicle even if I could afford it and even if you guaranteed to buy it back from me for the same amount I'd get investing in the stock market.

[Scoundreller]

Yeah, I feel like I could (should?) get around town faster in a beat up Corolla, and getting around faster on a highway in a supercar would require taking a lot of physical + legal risk.

[kjkjadksj]

Thats true for most cars with a bit of a cult interest past a certain age, not just ferrari. An old civic in one of the nicer engine trims would also hold value at this point, even appreciate.

[brandall10]

It's interesting that Jay Leno refuses to buy a Ferrari for this fact.

[m463]

there are also severe restrictions on your ownership of the ferrari.

You are required to maintain and insure it. by ferrari.

You can't loan it out for performance testing.

You can't street race it.

You can't sully the brand.

and plenty more.

makes me wonder, do the new ones have telemetry to check this stuff?

[fbdab103]

So...no fun allowed? You can buy the car exclusively for the purpose of being seen in said car. I am definitively not a car guy, but what's the point if you do not red-line it for some quick thrills?

Whatever makes people happy, I guess. I will continue to drive my ~zero maintenance Honda without regrets.

[eszed]

I've ridden in two Ferraris, and they were very much "red-lined for quick thrills". The "Ferrari rules" may build a mystique, but there's also some juice in breaking rules.

[pie420]

it is the same model. in order to buy a birkin you need to buy tens of thousands of dollars of less desireable Hermes product.

[prova_modena]

...to get an allocation for the latest and greatest model. Pretty sure you can walk into most Ferrari dealers today and order a Roma, for example, without previous ownership history.

[michael_vo]

Actually the whole sneaker market is like this too now. They have weekly drops where inventory is restricted to create hype.

[wlesieutre]

Not the whole sneaker market, a weird premium collectable subset of the sneaker market is like this. You can buy sneakers at Costco (as long as you like the one option they stock).

[silverpepsi]

Not the whole market at the high end either, I have very little trouble getting any pair of Balmain, Versace, and Rick Owens sneaker I want - I have several dozen pairs of all three brands

Strategy at the high end is to price correctly but astronomically so almost no one can afford them, then offer seasonal sales to sell the less popular colorways or styles off to the aspirational upper poor.

Nike/Adidas is like the polar opposite, intentionally underprice so demand is frantic and there is a lot of action for middle men, then over the years try to steal back as much of the middle men profit as possible

All very interesting imo

[oblio]

> I have several dozen pairs of all three brands

I guess different colors? I've always wondered, what do people with 50+ pairs of shoes do? Surely most of them just gather dust.

> price correctly but astronomically

Based on materials or cost of labor, I doubt it's correct pricing. It's all artificial scarcity due to branding, I'm fairly sure.

[zeroonetwothree]

Indeed, I have exactly one pair of sneakers. When they wear out I buy a new pair. I usually spend $50-100

[michael_vo]

There's a whole ecosystem for used nike shoes. https://www.youtube.com/@Ramitheicon gets over 500k each video and he's got a physical storefront where he trades cash to kids for their used nike shoes. There's so much hype for these shoes from NBA players, tik tok, instagram, and youtube.

[axlee]

We're far from the 2018-2021 levels of ridiculousness though, the hypebeat market has taken a big hit. Grey market watches as well.

Birkins haven't.

[tempsy]

Uh not really.

The unique part here is that in order to even have the chance to buy a bag you need to develop a relationship with a sales rep and buy a bunch of other stuff. The more other stuff you buy the higher on whatever list they'll put you and when they get a bag in stock they'll give the chance to buy to whoever they have a positive relationship with and who has spent a lot of money.

[pfannkuchen]

Sounds a lot like getting a mechanic in the USSR.

[oblio]

7 years from now. But will the mechanic come in the morning or in the afternoon?

[zeroonetwothree]

Hopefully the afternoon since the plumber is coming that morning

[taude]

i heard this is how it's working for a Rolex now, too, unless you go to secondary market and pay a big premium.

[Raidion]

This is always how Rolex has worked. Supply is limited, and prices are fixed, so they have to pick and choose who gets the rarer and more desirable watches, and who better to offer them to than the people who are your best customers (or have enough clout to be free advertising?).

Ferrari works the same way.

[blantonl]

Definitely not always how Rolex worked. Just 10-15 years ago you could walk in and purchase a stainless steel sport Rolex watch for a good discount brand new at authorized distributors.