Advice to consider when buying prints by Bankdy, British graffiti artist




		Banksy - Prints and Original Artwork Buyers Guide				BANKSY INDEX Banksy news - read the aots banksy blog Banksy street work photo galleries London 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Bristol / Seaside USA / Europe Banksy off street photo galleries Turf War 1 2 3 4 Crude Oils 1 2 Barely Legal 1 2 Cans Festival 1 Banksy versus Bristol Museum 1 2 Santa's Ghetto 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2010 - M&S Other Banksy Exhibitions 1 Banksy film and videos Exit Through The Gift Shop DVD and film Banksy videos Banksy prints screen prints / photo prints Banksy books Banging / Exist / Cut It Out / Wall and Piece / All Banksy Books Official websites Banksy.co.uk (the real deal) picturesonwalls.com (prints) pestcontroloffice.com (authentication) Banksy - stuff for sale quick links Banksy FAQ
		WHERE TO BUY The simplest advice I can give you is to only buy from official sources and only buy if you like the art enough to part with the cash required. If you follow these two rules you'll never be disappointed. The official sources are as follows: Banksy Prints: Picturesonwalls.com aka POW Banksy Original Artwork & selected prints: Pest Control Office (Please note that artofthestate.co.uk does not sell prints, value prints or send emails when new prints become available). WHAT TO BUY There is a huge amount of Banksy material on Ebay - most of it at the time of writing is simply posters of photographs of his work on the street or copies of canvases and screen prints he's produced. Whatever you think don't buy any of this stuff in the hope that it will go up in value and don't pay much more than the cost of getting the photograph reproduced.
		CHECKING AUTHENTICITY - Picturesonwalls.com can authenticate any Banksy print for a fee. Pestcontoloffice.com can authenticate any original Banksy work, again for a fee. Neither will authenticate any work that has been removed from the street.

		The rest of this page suggests ways you can check authenticity and gives some more buying advice for using places such as Ebay. More detailed advice and pictures will be added in the coming weeks.

		Other information
Signature	Banksy usually signs prints in pencil, the signature can be in the bottom left or right hand corner. Signatures are all to easy to fake. Bear in mind that when signing 350 pieces of paper in a row a signature is going to vary a little! Banksy himself has varied his signature style over time.

Blind Stamp / rubber stamp	In the last few years Pictures On Walls have used an embossing stamp to give a print an additional security measure to make fakes harder to produce. The impression it leaves is much harder to fake (though not impossible) and the number of a print is often written inside this area making it harder to change. Different stamps are now being used for different artists. Before the blind stamp a small 'banksy' rubber stamp was used on the front of some prints in a red or a black ink.

Numbering	Generally prints are given an edition number, there have been various numbering systems used over the years so there is no hard and fast rule regarding these. There are also prints marked up as AP's (artists proofs used to fine tune the print quality before the edition run) and gifts from the artist directly where several methods have been employed.

Receipt	Numerous places have resold Banksy Prints over the years. Some of the more common places are Pictures On walls, PYMCA, Lazinc, Tom Tom shop, Elektrik Sheep, AK Press, Art Republic and even from a concession in Selfridges. POW will send an email receipt.

Paper	As a general rule screen prints are produced on quite a heavy paper with matt finish. Again I'll include more detail when I list individual print characteristics. A couple of prints have been produced with a 'deckled' edge.

POW Records	POW now keep a record of the purchase details of every print that has been sold. Data Protection laws mean that this information is not readily available but if asked they may be able to give you some assurance whether what you have been told by a seller is likely to be true. This information is only given out because they are nice people but really they have better things to do with their time. Its up to the seller, not POW, to provide provenance for an article. You don't go to a store 12 months after you bought something and expect them to give you a receipt!

Certificates of Authenticity	For a fee Pest Control and Pictures on Walls can issue a certificate of authenticity. This is currently the best authentication method available and employs several security measures to make it difficult to fake and ultimately if checked against POW's records virtually impossible.