Meet the Firms Turning Luxury Collectibles Into an Asset Class

17 Sept 2026

It was the reelection of Donald Trump that sparked an idea for Dana Auslander, a Black-stone alumna. “I knew we were in for a volatility shit show,” the 50-something New Yorker says, keenly aware that wealth-preserving assets like gold were likely to thrive in an unpredictable environment. (Indeed, prices per troy ounce were up about 70 percent within a year of his return to office.) Could she replicate that kind of upside through an entirely different commodity? The answer, she decided, was sitting in a boutique on Madison Avenue.

Auslander has been a loyal Hermès customer for two decades. Over that span, she has watched as the brand’s most coveted bags—Birkin or otherwise—have become harder and harder for buyers to acquire. With a tightening supply, the company’s stock soared, climbing from 53 euros (about $63) in 2004 to roughly 2,300 euros ($2,736) in late 2024, an increase of around 3,550 percent. Auslander reasoned she could help investors profit from that momentum in an entirely new way, and the result was her wealth-tech start-up, Luxus.

She launched in 2021 with Fund 1. It took $1 million from accredited investors, with a minimum buy-in of $100,000, and used the capital to acquire Birkin and Kelly bags on the secondary market. Over a 15-month period, the fund would continuously exit those bags to buyers at a premium, aiming to deliver a healthy return. As of this writing, Fund 1 had sold 46 of 56 bags, mostly via partners such as Sotheby’s Buy Now, the RealReal, and eBay. Auslander proudly touts a 44.9 percent net R.O.I. “That’s way better than anything else,” she says.