Please bare with me people I'll be going through all my pms this evening.

Banksy is now sold pending payment

Incredible. What a discovery. 

The uniqueness of the piece is that it features clearly identifiable elements from two distinct phases in DOC's artistic career:

(i) "Adam Neate's painting style is pretty cool. And it can't be that difficult to replicate."

(ii) "OMG! Look what happens when I add paint to bubble wrap and press it against a canvas."


This work therefore is arguably the art equivalent of a transitional-fossil find in evolutionary biology or palaeontology. It's a missing link, and very exciting indeed.

for the love of christ, leave it alone. frame out the damage lines

I feel for you mate, shitty situation.

It's an old Banksy, it has lived its life, so I would consider the marks as part of the history and nicely frMe it out with museum glass this time !

If this were mine, I would go option A.
And kudos to you for buying back in the day!!

Cover up the area that was exposed, leaving the darker area. Put it back on the wall and go back round the world - this time the other way. Hey presto - on your return you'll have a print with a uniform paper colour.

... A ...

float it, and put it near a sun lamp for a few years

It may even out? Maybe? It could work, couldn't it?

Or just leave it

I would have thought the numbering would be a worry if it was bleached

Nah, bleach it, and let us know how you get on,

Good luck

I'd go for the restoration.

A all the way, it's probably looking a little aged, but it is, if you go B you may end up with one odd looking rat which you can go nowhere with and not enjoy.

Sad, but glad you got it at the early price. It's still what it is.

Completely agree with Cornish. It has a story to tell. Just float mount and enjoy.

Hey Segment considering the buying price I would go restoration.

This said....

At the end, it depend how professional the company and there are few things to be known

Basic standard paper restoration involved bathing in distilled water. Beachl is also commonly used to clean paper because it works well. But I would still be carefull with bleaching. In regards of alteration of color, you can ask to test it before doing the all process but it should be fine under monitoring and after testing... also a longer bath on the bottom and right part of print would be good (see vid just need to incline the paper in bath or spray more in this area).

But note that people looking for good restoration (or conservation) will always remove the acidity from paper by washing it under distilled water (lot of it) and doing at least one alkaline bath of ph9 or 10 to neutralise the paper. Reason is that strong bleaching (or any acid) is bad for the paper in long term.

To cut it short, ask how strong the bleaching is, which one they use, also if they can do light bleaching on less brownish parts... and if bleaching needs to be remove with distilled and akaline water baths

check under bleaching - www.collectorsguide.com/fa/fa010.shtml
to bleach or not to bleach - cool.conservation-us.org/byorg/abbey/an/an13/an13-5/an13-516.html
always test before full bath -

Easy for me to say I know but I think if it was mine i'd go for it especially as it was purchased for £75.00. I think Graham Bignell is a very good restorer, and his words are erring on the side of caution, but I reckon he sounds more optimistic rather than pessimistic about the restoration to be undertaken. I think if he could make it even 75% better i'd go for it. It'll still be worth in excess of £2k. Framing wise i'd float it, don't put another matboard on it. This is my 'Love Rat'.

Leave it as is. Great image and great story. Old school banksy bought for the love of art and kept how most people would have done...