Urban Art Association

I wish I could go back in time & kick my own ass !!

Hello all

I am selling my signed Banksy Girl With Balloon Ed 150

Low Number

Immaculate condition

Framed by Mr Frameman with museum glass

Registered in my name and comes with Pest control

Based in London

Serious buyers only please

Been offered -and refused- 85k by London art dealer

Offers of 100k +

Contact via PM

the last signed was 11/2015 by Bonham for 56k ?!

Always look forward to lee3's Banksy posts on here. One of very few on here with a great knowledge of Banksy and his works.

Knows his beans, for sure.

For £100k I will sell you my daughter and a pack of 50 balloons thrown in free

100k, 85k, 53k. This is crazy! What the fuck. Honestly, it's just a banksy print! You can keep them, think this world has turned topsy turvey, way way to much money than sense floating around. Guess it shows who's involved with this game and it definitely isn't the joe everyman. Almost an advertisement to the greed and inequality of the U.K. right here and so ironic considering banksy and street arts origins.

100k, 85k, 53k. This is crazy! What the fuck. Honestly, it's just a banksy print! You can keep them, think this world has turned topsy turvey, way way to much money than sense floating around. Guess it shows who's involved with this game and it definitely isn't the joe everyman. Almost an advertisement to the greed and inequality of the U.K. right here and so ironic considering banksy and street arts origins.

Great insight as always lee, but I am curious about your mention of the devalued pound vs the US dollar. Since the pound is arguably the default measure for banksy, it almost sounds as if his work is all up 10-15 percent in pound terms post brexit. But if that was the case, wouldn't it mean most buyers are using dollars, and that would be the default currency to value?

does my question make sense?  If most of the transactions were say Brits buying from Brits just to use an example, then the price of his works in pounds would stay the same. But if those works have indeed gone up10 or so percent in pound terms, does that mean most buyers are US based, as these values stayed the same in dollar terms?  The usd is strong against pretty much everything, so wouldn't it have to be us buyers doing most of the buying to get the works to the same net usd price when the pound goes from 1.6 to 1.3?

Thanks all for the kind words above, much appreciated. Dexter, your question makes perfect sense and my reply is that of a US collector with a strong bias for the artist.  There is no doubt with your point that the pound has always been the standard for Banksy but his audience has been international for some time so when the pound is devalued significantly, it represents a theoretical opportunity for everyone (not just US collectors) whose day to day currency is anything but the pound.  Which is not to sound crass given the underlying situation but merely speaking observationally and placing my personal feelings regarding that vote to the side for discussion. 

I say theoretical opportunity above because it was my expectation that prices for most artists featured in the June sales, and the sales immediately following, would be a complete disaster as the world digested the shock.  I expected withdrawn lots because sellers did not want to be compensated with devalued sterling and less participation from the British audience with lower overall winning bids coming mostly from overseas.  Yet, in hindsight, I couldn't have been more wrong.  The bidding for this artist, especially for prints, was borderline feverish with some jaw dropping results.  The opportunity that I foresaw never arrived and instead the market seemed to react immediately by (depending on your view) raising prices in pounds significantly or mildly for the other competitive currencies.  IOW, anyone buying in the past couple months has been paying a premium regardless of once's residency compared with prices of past.  So, long winded way of saying I agree with your point that most are paying higher prices but I don't believe it's just US buyers.  I know there are plenty of UK buyers who seem to be more active with this artist than ever before. A new normal if you will but hell if I can explain it so I'll just watch and try to draw conclusions in hindsight.  And it does a disservice to leave out the fact that this artist barely strokes his market and exercises considerable restraint (far more than i could in his shoes) which I suspect draws more admirers to the artist and his work over time. 

My apologies again to you Wisky and wish you a speedy sale.  Also, apologies to anyone loathing the discussion of price in the absence of, or opposed to any discussion of the art itself.   To that end,  I think we've all drawn our own conclusions regarding Girl With Balloon but I must say I don't comprehend the mystique for this composition over seemingly everything else.  It's certainly both succinct and poignant yet commands a very steep premium to all of his other best works.