Friday, May 2, 2008

How much is the Mona Lisa worth?

For a question like this (here), here are some answers that pop out -
a) It's priceless
b) It's worth $500 million
c) Prior to the 1962-63 tour, the painting was assessed for insurance purposes at $100 million. Adjusted for inflation since then -- $100 million in 1962 is approximately $645 million in 2005. So, thats the price of the painting today.

Incidentally there is one man who has "the" answer - Warren E. Buffett

In his letter dated January 18, 1964, Warren Buffett discusses "The Joys of Compounding" with the following insight :

Since the whole subject of compounding has such a crass ring to it, I will attempt to introduce a little class into this discussion by turning to the art world. Francis I of France paid 4,000 ecus in 1540 for Leonardo de Vinci's Mona Lisa. On the off chance that a few of you have not kept track of the fluctuations of the ecu, 4,000 converted out to about $20,000.

If Francis had kept his feet on the ground and he (and his trustees) had been able to find a 6% after-tax investment, the estate now would be worth something over $1,000,000,000,000,000 - That's $1 quadrillion or over 3,000 times the present national debt, all from 6%.

I trust this will end all discussion in our household about any purchase of paintings qualifying as an investment.


If you like this content, then do check out my new blog on investing and stock markets for lots more information on the Indian equity markets


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mcx said...

Thank you for sharing your good idea, i want to also share something.Many people have wondered how much the Mona Lisa is worth. No monetary value has been added to this painting. Therefore, it is considered to be priceless. If you just have to put a price on the Mona Lisa, it has to be worth more than $7.5 million because that is the cost of the room that it is stored in.

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