Had it with stocks? Buy an alpaca
By M.P. Dunleavey
Don’t hang your hopes on dull old shares that just make everyone crabby anyway. Fabulous and fun investments can be yours! Think alpacas, islands and whiskey. Sick of the stock market? Any sane person would be, and I am, too. Rather than tie up all my vast holdings in that endless mood swing they call the Dow, I’m thinking it might be time to consider some alternatives.
Why put all your money in the market when there are so many other, much more interesting ways to lose it? Sure, alternative investments may not offer all the comforts of blue-chip stocks - little things like credible financial statements, professional management and reliable earnings - but these days, neither does the market.
And the alternatives have one thing that no boring, old mutual fund will ever have . . . romance.
I recently spent a long afternoon on the Internet, flipping through the financial equivalent of a rack of travel brochures and daydreaming of fabulous investment adventures in exotic locales. Here’s what I found:
That emerald mine I’ve always wanted
For a mere $150,000 you could be the owner of an emerald mine in Zambia. Apparently, Zambian emeralds are “amongst the best in the world” in terms of quality and color, according to a promoter’s Web site. And this week’s government in Zambia is the most stable and democratic yet. That, plus the fact that the emerald market is woefully undersupplied (who knew?) means that there’s a multimillion-dollar demand around the globe, and your investment is almost certain to get you - if nothing else - a very large hole in the ground in a place you will never visit.
No man is an island who owns one
So if you’re thinking of investing in a second home, why not buy your own island in the Bahamas for just $75,000? It’s a full acre in size with “a rocky shoreline and dense foliage,” according to the listing at Private Islands Online. There’s also a private dock on the island so you can visit your rocks and foliage. Best of all is the name: Carrion Crow Cay. Homey, no? Who knows how much this little slice of paradise will be worth in a few years when sea levels start to rise?
If you want something a little less vulnerable to global warming, try American Island in British Columbia. Its eight woodsy acres sit in the midst of the seventh-largest lake in the province. Be prepared to pitch a tent, but what do you expect for $54,000?
Need something a bit more substantial? How about a lakeside castle in South Africa for $350,000? You can find it and others on a unique Web site that specializes in castles for sale.
Whatever you decide, you’re going to think twice before you throw your money at some tacky condo in Florida now, aren’t you?
An investment that’s going places
If you had sold all your stocks and bought a classic 1969 Pontiac Firebird convertible for $16,000 to $22,000 in 2000, you would have been driving an investment worth about 15% to 20% more by the end of 2001. This is according to the 2001 Dean’s List, a selection of collectible cars that auto expert Dean Kruse releases each year. (Kruse, former president of the Kruse International auto auction house, sold his company to e-Bay in 1999.)
While that Firebird may sound pricey, many older cars can be had for only a few thousand bucks. Check your classifieds for, say, a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle. If you’re willing to invest in a complete overhaul, paint it and top it off with bright, swirling flame-like decorations, you could net as much as $9,000.
You’ll drink to that
Single-malt scotch gets more valuable with every year that goes by, so why not invest in a barrel or two? It may seem like an intoxicating opportunity - with promoters making promises of “spectacular appreciation rates” of up to 18%.
Still, the Scotch Whisky Association soberly reminds the would-be investor that whisky investing is a wholly unregulated field. “The only certainty about owning a cask of Scotch is that it will lose roughly 2% of the contents through evaporation each year,” they note. “Everything else in this context is pure speculation.”
But even if the Scotch market crashes and your investment suddenly becomes worthless, you can still throw one heck of a bankruptcy party.
Alpacas are an adorable, low-maintenance, grass-eating, child-friendly, ready-for-Disney investment opportunity. And for a while there, you could make a pretty penny investing in alpacas. Top-quality breeding males and females sell for as much as $20,000 to $30,000. In one recent auction, an alpaca fetched $250,000.
Supposedly prized for the fine wool they produce, it turns out that alpacas don’t produce enough of it in a year to pay for much more than their room and board. Nor can you eat them. According to the Humming Hill Suri Alpaca farm, “This is a breeding-based industry. That means that your profits are made by breeding and selling the animals from your farm.”
Breeding for what? To make more alpacas, of course! But there are American alpaca farms galore and festivals all around the country where breeders gather to compete for ribbons. There’s even an event called “Alpacapalooza.” The big question for investors is how long people will continue to pay outlandish sums for alpacas as breeders keep making more of them. When supply starts to exceed demand, say in about 10 minutes, you may see alpaca burger in your local market at 89 cents a pound.
If you’re still with me and seriously considering one of these alternative investments, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you. Yes, that one! New York’s new mayor, former entrepreneur and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who is intent on running his city at a profit, floated the idea of selling the city’s bridges to raise cash. No word yet on price, but I’ll keep you posted.
