Buying and selling vintage perfumes: a brief guide.

Buying and selling vintage perfumes: what must be known and what must be done.

Please note: this is not a guide for professional sellers or buyers. It is intended for collectors and enthusiasts seeking to navigate the vintage perfume market. 

Buying and selling perfumes is not inherently difficult, but it does require due diligence. Transactions involving contemporary fragrances (those that are readily available) are generally straightforward. By contrast, the vintage perfume market is considerably more complex and shaped by additional variables, including condition, rarity, collectibility, and storage history. A clear understanding of these factors is essential to avoid unpleasant surprises or potential complications.

A great plague: the fake vintage perfumes.

Let us begin with a conceptual observation and then move on to practical examples. If a major perfume brand retails at, say, €100 (or $100), while its vintage version can be found online for €300 (or $300), which do you think a counterfeiter is more likely to replicate to perfection: the current release or the vintage one? Exactly, you’ve guessed correctly. When the price of a vintage version consistently exceeds that of the modern release, it is only a matter of time before counterfeiters step in.

Fake or legit fragrances?

Let us now turn to the practical dimension. Over the course of a single month, I found myself -unwillingly- at the center of three separate episodes that profoundly affected me and gave me much to reflect on.

Case one: a friend sent me a large set of photographs of a rare Guerlain perfume being offered for sale online. He was skeptical and did not trust the listing; the asking price was extremely high, and before committing a substantial sum, he asked for my expert opinion. The question was straightforward: is that antique Guerlain perfume authentic?

Collecting perfumes: why?

From time to time, a few people ask me why anyone would collect perfume nowadays. But I think the real question they're asking is different: does it actually make sense to collect perfumes today? People collect all sorts of things -trading cards, stickers, vintage video games- so why should collecting perfume be any stranger?

When I hear questions like these, I try to take a step back and look at the world of perfumery with some detachment: what are perfumes today compared to those of the past? And is there any real reason they might become collectible items -or even, as some suggest- an investment?