POW have issued a no-nonsense warning with regard to TomTom Gallery and the unauthorised authentication of prints, in the ebay Banksy forum.

full text:

Tom Tom Gallery: A Warning
picturesonwalls (623 )
12/09/06 04:42 PM


Due to recent disclosures from concerned customers, Pictures On Walls would like to publicly distance themselves from the Tom Tom Gallery. Tom Tom do not have authorisation to authenticate Banksy prints or any other prints produced by POW. There was a time when we sold some wholesale prints to them but we no longer do so and would advise against dealings with them which relate to the mentioned artists. Tom Tom do not keep a record of who they sold their prints to, let alone ours and were not involved in the printing process in anyway so are not in a position to authenticate. As far as we are aware this has no affect on their ability to sell other artists work, they just have no juristiction when it comes to POW artists.

The secondary market is of little concern to us, we do keep a record of customers and if we have time will confirm ownership by telephone or email - however please be aware we are a business and should authentication become a full time job we will have to consider charging a fee. In order to keep this service as a free service I would suggest contacting us only when other avenues have been exhasted. It is also up to you to take the neccessary precautions when buying and selling prints - always keep ahold of your receipt as we (like any other retailer) do not issue duplicates.

We don't like it when people are duped but as much as we would like to be able to help people out when it happens please remember that we are a screen printers with a website. Our intention was always to sell art for people to put on their walls and enjoy, the secondary market has taken us by suprise and while we will try and monitor it, it is not our responsibility and we can do so only when time will allow.

Kind regards,

Steph, Dora and Ben.
POW