SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old is a collectable Scotch whisky from Karuizawa aged 17 years. Based on 10 recorded auction lots across 9 months of trading data, the current median hammer price is £800, with the most recent sale at £1,150. Over the trading window, prices have ranged from £360 (low) to £3,200 (high). Accounting for lot-to-lot variation, a realistic valuation range for SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old is £690–£1,610 (±40% around the latest sale).
Karuizawa is a whisky distillery. SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old is an age-stated bottling at 17 years old, distilled in 1996.
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 (1996), so the available batch is inherently finite.
Single cask
A single-cask bottling (cask 132x4) comes from one strictly limited outturn rather than a large batch.
Independent bottling
An independent bottling by smws, typically produced in far smaller numbers than an official distillery release.
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
£1,150
24-month median
£800
24-month high
£3,200
24-month low
£360
Estimated value · likely range
£690–£1,610 ±40%
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 |
|---|---|---|
| November 2025 | £1,150 | 1 |
| March 2022 | £3,200 | 1 |
| August 2018 | £1,000 | 1 |
| March 2018 | £1,200 | 2 |
| February 2017 | £800 | 1 |
| September 2015 | £600 | 1 |
| August 2014 | £360 | 1 |
| July 2014 | £450 | 1 |
| May 2014 | £420 | 1 |
More from Karuizawa
The latest hammer price for SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old at auction is £1,150. Across the most recent 24 months of auction data, the median hammer price is £800, with a high of £3,200 and a low of £360. 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 SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old, so a year-on-year trend is not yet computed. Recent hammer prices range from £360 to £3,200 (median £800).
SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old 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 £800 (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%.
SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old has appeared in 10 recorded auction lots in our database, with a current median hammer price of £800. 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 £1,150, 24-month median £800 — 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 SMWS 132.4 Karuizawa 1996 17 Year Old that hammers at £1,150 would cost the buyer approximately £1,449 all-in including buyer's premium.
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