A Birkin, a Kelly, a Classic Flap in the right leather: these are not scarce by accident. The houses decide how many exist, and they decide on fewer than the people who want one. Everything else about why the bags hold their value follows from that.
The houses make fewer than people want
Sotheby’s reports that Hermès lets a client buy two of its most wanted bags a year, and that how many can exist at all is set by how many artisans have been trained to make one. Each Birkin is made by hand by a single artisan over at least eighteen hours. Hermès itself says its leather goods growth is set by production capacity, and it is opening new workshops on a schedule that runs to 2030. Supply is decided, not discovered.
The house’s own price keeps climbing
Hermès publishes no price history, but Sotheby’s keeps one. Its table for the Birkin 25 in Togo leather runs from 2016 to 2026 and moves in one direction: $9,400 at the start of it, $13,500 now. Over the decade to 2025, Rebag found the Birkin’s average retail price up 43%. The bags already out there are all anyone can actually get, and every rise at the counter lifts what they fetch.
Resale has climbed faster still
Rebag appraises resale prices for a living. Reading ten years of its own Birkin data, it found average resale values up 92% since 2015, more than twice the rise in the house’s own price over the same years. Its 2025 Clair Report put Hermès at the top of luxury resale with an average value retention of 138%, and its 2024 edition put Chanel at 92% and Louis Vuitton at 88%. Hermès sells the Birkin 30 for $14,900 in the United States as of 2026, and at Sotheby’s the Togo one averaged $22,300 in 2025.
What none of it promises
A good decade is not a promise about the next one, and none of these figures is a promise about any one bag. What they say is that the houses keep these bags scarce, that resale is deep enough to be measured, and that many of them have held their value while they were being worn. Our own record is on the Track Record page: every bag members have sold, what they paid, what it sold for, what they made and how long it took.
Sources
- Sotheby’s, “What Influences an Hermès Birkin Bag Price”, 28 January 2026: the two bags a year, and the artisans.
- Sotheby’s, “Complete Guide to Buying a Birkin Bag”, retrieved September 2026: the hours of work in each bag, the Birkin 30’s 2026 retail price in the United States, and its 2025 average selling price at Sotheby’s.
- Hermès International, 2025 full year results press release, 12 February 2026: production capacity and the workshop schedule.
- Sotheby’s, “Hermès Raises the Birkin Bag Price: What You Need to Know”, 21 January 2026: the Birkin 25 price table.
- Rebag, The Clair Report, sixth annual edition, December 2025: the Birkin decade, and Hermès value retention.
- Rebag, The Clair Report, fifth annual edition, December 2024: Chanel and Louis Vuitton value retention.