Thread: Buying rare exotic wood a good investment?

Originally Posted by tomartomau

I don’t claim any special knowledge but in my experience a small percentage of people are prepared to pay good money for timber, most people want a bargain. I spend about 4K whenever I buy timber but that is from a timber merchant.

Last purchase I made was 4K for 3 plus cubes of NSW Rosewood. When you find a good wood, you grab it - fast.

Key to that is you need to know what's worth grabbing. That only comes with time, study, experience, and what you intend to do with it.

For little lots of wood, it comes down mostly to experience. What is it you want and want to make. No point in grabbing Gidgee if you never have any intention of using it... But say you like using pine... During covid I found bunnings selling really nice tight grained pine studs from Canada for dirt cheap that had been dumped in Aus after the markets had crashed. I grabbed a whole bunch, not for construction, but to eventually use it in furniture. I may not use it for years but I know I like working with pine and will eventually turn it all into a piece of furniture. Or die and leave my wife to figure out what the heck to do with all my sh... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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$120,000

Originally Posted by havabeer69

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$120,000

That's a lot of $ for a pile of crap.
Its firewood material!

Originally Posted by auscab

That's a lot of $ for a pile of crap.

Surely antique wood would be ideal for making that special piece of furniture. Wouldn't it be an instant antique.

The thing is.... Your crystal ball needs to be pretty darned good. What forest timber will be coming out of plantations 20 years from now? What will shoot up in value?

What will governments do treaty wise to change paperwork requirements and turn your stash into something you can't sell. It's not just CITES paperwork, it's also Phytosanitary certificates certifying wood is bug/pathogen free.

How will demand change as the market changes?

I've seen all of these things happen in the last 20 years.

The thing I can say is:

Wood probably is not a very good investment unless you have a very specific market and product in mind. Example... AAAA/Master grade spruce guitar tops. During my hobby time, I've seen a general grade inflation as well as prices going up a lot faster than inflation as supply of old growth dries up. Moreso for guitar grade Genuine Koa, Honduras Mahogany, and Brazilian Rosewood.

But, since you aren't investing in "Commercial quantities," you will be stuck selling to hobby buyers who want to sift your whole collection and then buy 1-piece.

The caveat is: Rare doesn't mean valuable. I haven't seen the same things happen with other woods that may be just as beautiful or uncommon, yet the price goes down. I've got a guitar set of Native Olive that's just as beautiful and pingy as Brazilian rosewood, bet it's worth about zero. Worse, I got it back when it was in the clear, and now it's not, so I probably couldn't even sell it if I wanted to.

What happens then?