Urban Art Association

Theres no surge.

weeble,

The current value of Banksy prints is a great incentive for forgers, and it is likely that we will see an increased number of convincing fakes. One of the key issues to consider when purchasing a Banksy print will therefore be whether it has provenance. It should be stressed that this applies to all Banksy prints (stamped and unstamped), but particularly the signed ones given their value.

Provenance is not restricted to a receipt from POW or one of the retailers that may have sold POW prints in the past (e.g. Selfridges, the shop at Tate Modern, ArtRepublic). However, it does require evidence tying the print back to its original source of POW.

For many prints, especially the older ones, there is likely to be a chain of custody. A particular print could have been sold and resold a few times before it ends up in your hands. If you can trace it back step-by-step to POW, then all is fine. There should also be documentary proof of each step (e.g. printouts of eBay sales).

Of course the last step will be the one to POW. POW has a fairly complete list of the original purchasers of its early Banksy prints, including the first, 'Rude Copper'. If you have the name of the person or shop you understand to be the original purchaser of a print, POW will be kind enough to confirm whether that name is consistent with its own records.

Notwithstanding the above, even without provenance, genuine Banksy prints are far from worthless. Interest in Banksy is such that there is a large market for them, and I suspect that will continue. Potential buyers will simply use their good judgement, gut instinct, or acquired knowledge and experience with Banksy prints when deciding whether or not to purchase such a print. However, such prints will be worth significantly less than identical ones with provenance.

If you're going to the effort of faking a banksy, it would not be a problem getting a blindstamp made so wouldn't discount those earlier prints, in fact if you see an early print like Weston Super Mare with a blind stamp you could instantly rule them out as being real.

Thanknkyou guys and hungrig for the detailed post. Its like, I really want to buy a Weston, but I'm scared of picking up a fake. So, if I buy one with a number, I should be able to trace it back to the seller, but I'll need to try an contact everyone owner in the chain - how feasible is it to do that? Has any of you ever done this?

All provenance means is the 'history' You don't need to contact each person whose hands its gone through - but there should be some sort of trail (email, receipts, bank statements, paypal logs, etc) showing the changing of hands from when it was first sold. Good luck!

to clarify something, 'backdoor' prints are not fakes as such, they were printed on the same paper at the same time using the same inks and the same screens. they are however illegitimate. they are outside of the edition and will be passed off as gifts, tests, un-numbered etc. they have a relative value as they are more akin to a regular print than say an inkjet, just remember anything that is not legit has no family tree (provinence) so proving it is a genuine knock-off (a contradiction in terms), is hard and even harder should you come to sell.

my advice? ask the seller if they are the registered purchaser at POW of the print. if they're not ask who is, they may refer you to an official outlet such as tom tom. if they still don't know, then step back. ask yourself how much you're willing to pay not knowing the origins of the print and therefore it's legitimacy? if you're a millionare you may not give sh*t, but to most people although they are in love with the work, nowadays the kind of sums involved mean that you have to at least protect your investment.

be careful but don't be put off, ask about, then ask about again. if you're still not sure then maybe leave it unless you can afford to take a risk. knowledge is power my friend so arm yourself and learn to trust yourself. it's you you have to answer to.

POW can verify that a certain prints went to various distributors (Greenleaf, the Tate, artrepublic, etc)

More importantly, if I were you I would go through old credit card/bank statements and find evidence of the purchase.