latest hammer price · blended across 2 auction houses
Auction lots
24
Houses
2
Last sold
165 days ago
Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice is a collectable Scotch whisky from Port Ellen. Based on 24 recorded auction lots across 22 months of trading data, the current median hammer price is £390, with the most recent sale at £420. Over the trading window, prices have ranged from £300 (low) to £560 (high). Accounting for lot-to-lot variation, a realistic valuation range for Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice is £373–£467 (±11% around the latest sale).
Year-on-year, Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice is up 10.5%, with a 6-month trend of -25% (down). wsky1 aggregates hammer prices from major public Scotch whisky auctions including Scotch Whisky Auctions, Whisky Auctioneer, and Bonhams. All prices are in GBP and exclude buyer's premium (typically 24–28% additional at major houses). Past auction performance is not a guarantee of future value.
Port Ellen is a whisky distillery. Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice is a no-age-statement bottling, distilled in 1981.
Closed / ghost distillery
Port Ellen closed in 1983; bottlings from its original era are finite and command a scarcity premium at auction.
Single vintage
Distilled in a single year (1981), so the available batch is inherently finite.
Named / limited release
Released as choiceconnoisseurs, a named edition rather than part of the standard core range.
These are scarcity and demand signals drawn from the bottle's own attributes — they describe the bottle, not a prediction of future price. Not investment advice.
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Latest sale
£420
24-month median
£390
24-month high
£560
24-month low
£300
Estimated value · likely range
£373–£467 ±11%
Auction hammers swing lot to lot with condition, fill level and timing. Treat this band — not a single figure — as the bottle's value.
Rare at auctiononly a handful of lots a year
Seen at auction
2 lots
Cadence
≈ every 183 days
Houses
2
Activity rank
top 39% of tracked bottles
Last seen
165 days ago
Across the auction houses wsky1 tracks.
Seen at: Scotch Whisky Auctions · Whisky Hammer
Cross-house median
£390
Median hammer price blended across every recorded sale at all 2 auction houses below — a single figure that smooths house-to-house variation.
| Auction house | Price points | Latest hammer | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scotch Whisky Auctions | 21 | £440 | £380 |
| Whisky Hammer | 1 | £420 | £420 |
| Month | Median | Lots |
|---|---|---|
| March 2026 | £420 | 1 |
| January 2026 | £440 | 1 |
| July 2025 | £360 | 1 |
| October 2024 | £420 | 1 |
| June 2024 | £420 | 1 |
| January 2024 | £480 | 1 |
| August 2022 | £560 | 1 |
| June 2021 | £520 | 1 |
| October 2020 | £460 | 1 |
| November 2019 | £300 | 1 |
| August 2019 | £400 | 1 |
| June 2019 | £360 | 2 |
More from Port Ellen
Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice appeared in 2 auction lots over the last 12 months across the auction houses wsky1 tracks — rare at auction (only a handful of lots a year). It has traded at 2 different auction houses in that period. That puts it in the top 39% by auction activity among the 29,829 bottles wsky1 tracks — most collectable bottles hammer only a handful of times a year.
The latest hammer price for Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice at auction is £420. Across the most recent 24 months of auction data, the median hammer price is £390, with a high of £560 and a low of £300. All prices are in GBP and exclude buyer's premium. Data is aggregated from major auction houses including Scotch Whisky Auctions, Whisky Auctioneer, and Bonhams.
Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice is up 10.5% year-on-year based on monthly median hammer prices. Over the past 6 months it has moved down 25%. Past auction performance is not a guarantee of future value.
Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice regularly appears at major Scotch whisky auction houses including Scotch Whisky Auctions (Scotland), Whisky Auctioneer (Scotland), Just Whisky, Whisky Hammer, and Bonhams. The current median hammer price is £390 (excluding buyer's premium). At most major houses, buyer's premium adds 24–28% on top of hammer for the buyer; sellers typically receive the hammer price minus a sales commission of 5–15%.
Over the past 12 months Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice has moved up 10.5%, with a current median hammer price of £390. The bottle has been observed at auction across 24 recorded lots in our database. wsky1 provides hammer-price data for informational purposes only — not investment advice. Whisky is an illiquid alternative asset; secondary-market value depends heavily on bottle condition, fill level, label integrity, and timing.
wsky1 ingests public auction results from major auction houses (via direct scraping of Scotch Whisky Auctions, Whisky Auctioneer, Bonhams, and Whisky Hammer, plus aggregated data from WhiskyHunter). For each bottle, we group hammer prices by year-month and compute the median price per month. The figures shown — latest £420, 24-month median £390 — are derived from this monthly-median methodology. All prices are hammer prices in GBP, excluding buyer's premium.
No. All prices on wsky1 are hammer prices only. Buyer's premium at major Scotch whisky auction houses currently runs at 24–28% on top of the hammer price. A bottle of Port Ellen 1981 Connoisseurs Choice that hammers at £420 would cost the buyer approximately £529 all-in including buyer's premium.
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