Page 74 - Psychology of Money - Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness-Harriman House Limited (2020)

“I’ve been banging away at this thing for 30 years. I think the simple math
COBACOBA
is, some projects work and some don’t. There’s no reason to belabor either
one. Just get on to the next.”

—Brad Pitt accepting a Screen Actors Guild Award

Heinz Berggruen fled Nazi Germany in 1936. He settled in America, where

he studied literature at U.C. Berkeley.

By most accounts he did not show particular promise in his youth. But by
the 1990s Berggruen was, by any measure, one of the most successful art
dealers of all time.

In 2000 Berggruen sold part of his massive collection of Picassos, Braques,
Klees, and Matisses to the German government for more than 100 million
euros. It was such a bargain that the Germans effectively considered it a
donation. The private market value of the collection was well over a $1
billion.

That one person can collect huge quantities of masterpieces is astounding.

Art is as subjective as it gets. How could anyone have foreseen, early in life,
what were to become the most sought-after works of the century?

You could say “skill.”

You could say “luck.”

The investment firm Horizon Research has a third explanation. And it’s very
relevant to investors.

“The great investors bought vast quantities of art,” the firm writes.¹⁹ “A

subset of the collections turned out to be great investments, and they were
held for a sufficiently long period of time to allow the portfolio return to