Damien Hirst H14 • The Secrets, by LJCal on Feb 16, 2024 5:04:16 GMT 1, If anyone wants to really understand how completely fucked these Hirst Heni prints are I'd encourage them to drop me a message. I broker pretty much all of his Heni releases regularly (on average 5-7 a month), and have watched his market get worse and worse with each release. And at the worst possible time, as demand is shrinking due to monetary tightening and higher interest rates the supply of these prints just goes up and up (whilst the quality seems to move in the opposite direction).

What needs to be appreciated, is that the bulk of people buying these are dealers and galleries, and they are sitting on HUGE inventories. I've been to several warehouses and lockups of various galleries/dealers and they are filled to bursting with Heni releases the majority Hirst timed releases. All of this will have to get absorbed and there comes a point where dealers will cut their losses and dump their inventory to release cash that will either provide a better return elsewhere or be used to keep the lights on. This has been happening gradually over the last 2 years but the flood gates have opened in the last 6 months.

Don't for one second think that this drop is a small edition, it's not at all. A small select group of buyers will want to hang these in their home, I'd be surprised if more than 10-20% bought primary for this reason, the rest have been bought to sell on and will just add to the already huge supply of unopened Heni prints stacked in a lock-up.

The smart money is dumping any and all Hirst giclees (there's some money to be had scalping off the really cheap ones if you can move them straight on), I think Virtues will likely settle at £8k and the rest will be selling at a discount to cost for some time (these included), even the older and better screenprints and woodcuts have come down a lot, these make for better investment but don't even expect these to hold their value in the short term (in other words make sure you buy well and can afford to hold for 3-4 years). Unless something completely unexpected happens you don't need a crystal ball to call this, it's already happening and will get worse before there's any kind of recovery (and that will be years off).

I know this will piss some people off but it's reality - sorry. You can either get mad or maybe look at these with fresh eyes, move them on and put the money into something better (cash under the mattress is even a better option imo).