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'Perfect' whisky collection fetches £6.3m at auction

Peter Dibdin Auctioneer holding bottle of 1926 Macallan before auctionPeter Dibdin

One of the world's largest private Scotch whisky collections has raised more than £6m at auction.

The "Perfect Collection" of 3,900 rare bottles was amassed over decades by the late US bottling magnate Richard Gooding.

It included a Macallan 1926 Fine and Rare 60 Year Old, which fetched a hammer price of £1m.

Auctioneers Whisky Auctioneer said the collection raised a record amount for an auction dedicated to one collector.

The online auction was held in two stages, with the first raising £3.2m last year.

This week's auction of the remaining 1,900 lots added a further £3.1m.

Auctioneers had hoped the 1926 Macallan - one of only 14 bottles of its kind - would achieve a world record hammer price, but it fell short of the £1.5m paid (including fees) for another Macallan from the same original bottling batch in 2019.

However, Whisky Auctioneer said it was the first time a single bottle of whisky had sold at an online-only auction for £1m.

Selected hammer prices from the second part of the Gooding auction:

  • The Macallan 1926 Fine & Rare 60 Year Old 75cl - £1,000,000
  • The Macallan 1972 Fine & Rare 29 Year Old - £30,000
  • The Macallan 1940 Fine & Rare 37 Year Old - £28,000
  • Bowmore 1967 Largiemeanoch 12 Year Old - £23,000
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Who was Richard Gooding?

Nancy Gooding Richard GoodingNancy Gooding

Richard Gooding's grandfather, James A Gooding, started the Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of Denver in 1936.

His father took over the business before Richard himself became owner and chief executive in 1979.

He sold the company to PepsiCo in 1988.

Mr Gooding regularly travelled from his home in the US to Scotland with his pilot to source special bottles at auctions and distilleries before his death in 2014.

His collection was housed in what Mr Gooding called his "pub" - a dedicated room in his Colorado family home that was specially designed to showcase his whiskies.

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Iain McClune, founder of Perth-based Whisky Auctioneer said​: "This auction was solely dedicated to one collector's magnificent library of whisky - a man who was dedicated to building The Perfect Collection.

"As enthusiasts of whisky ourselves, we knew that this collection deserved its own spotlight to allow us to truly convey the rarity and sheer scale of something so historic."