Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa is a collectable Scotch whisky from Karuizawa. Based on 3 recorded auction lots across 3 months of trading data, the current median hammer price is £3,500, with the most recent sale at £3,500. Over the trading window, prices have ranged from £3,100 (low) to £3,500 (high). Accounting for lot-to-lot variation, a realistic valuation range for Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa is £3,220–£3,780 (±8% around the latest sale).
Karuizawa is a whisky distillery. Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa is a no-age-statement bottling, distilled in 1974.
Closed / ghost distillery
Karuizawa closed in 2000 and has since been demolished — no new whisky will ever be produced, which underpins exceptional auction demand.
Single vintage
Distilled in a single year (1974), so the available batch is inherently finite.
Named / limited release
Released as goldenshowa, 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.
Latest sale
£3,500
24-month median
£3,500
24-month high
£3,500
24-month low
£3,100
Estimated value · likely range
£3,220–£3,780 ±8%
Auction hammers swing lot to lot with condition, fill level and timing. Treat this band — not a single figure — as the bottle's value.
| Month | Median | Lots |
|---|---|---|
| April 2026 | £3,500 | 1 |
| January 2026 | £3,100 | 1 |
| December 2025 | £3,500 | 1 |
The latest hammer price for Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa at auction is £3,500. Across the most recent 24 months of auction data, the median hammer price is £3,500, with a high of £3,500 and a low of £3,100. 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.
wsky1 currently has fewer than 12 months of auction data for Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa, so a year-on-year trend is not yet computed. Recent hammer prices range from £3,100 to £3,500 (median £3,500).
Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa 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 £3,500 (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%.
Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa has appeared in 3 recorded auction lots in our database, with a current median hammer price of £3,500. wsky1 provides hammer-price data for informational purposes only — not investment advice.
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 £3,500, 24-month median £3,500 — 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 Karuizawa 1974 The Golden Age of Showa that hammers at £3,500 would cost the buyer approximately £4,410 all-in including buyer's premium.
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