shhh about the deep end

thanks ;-)

But you have millions zipster, you buy lots every week have you got a passport for tomorrow night zippy?

good point.

Depends on how you look at things. For Americans, this is a terrible time to buy due to the current strength of the US dollar. If anything, prices are just adjusting to that.

I agree it's a good time to buy

With more & more prints finding good homes (as they're not worth flippers buying) they'll only become scarcer & scarcer in the next year or so & Banksy , Neate etc. are here to stay

Think Micaleff's caused a bit of a shake up though & not really done himself any favours

lol Cheers Jase !
No .. it's just some dippy bird off you-tube that i kinda like
But i swear she's had her drink spiked more than once ;D ;D

can i put forward a different theory? I dont whole heartedly buy into this but i believe that prices might not recover to their past highs. This last 4 months has seen an absolute flood of prints by top artists, and its not going to stop, there will maybe be another neate print tomorrow night, there will certainly be 3 or so more POW micallef prints (each show is like an album release and the prints are the singles!) and of course now banksy looks to be back from his extended break and is able to sign the editions, i would imagine trolly hunters will not be the last banksy before christmas. The market for prints is big, but not huge and when all of these prints flood the market it reaches saturation point.

A few months ago i had the start of an awesome print collection, but there was no way i could hang them all, so i decided to offload half of them. It was a tough decision, but they were in folders under my bed doing nothing. Its all very well and good owning 13 neate prints, but can you really put them all on your wall without sacrificing other works hanging space?

I think what is happening now is a combination of people selling to clear debt, people selling to clear room, the usual flippers who always buy to sell and maybe a small effect of the supposed econemy slowdown, which only happens because the news says people will stop spending, so everyone thinks 'shit, i better stop spending'!

It will be interesting to see what happens to the market after this banksy release, with it being such a popular print. Also if they charge £1000 each for the signed and £500 for unsigned and take another £600,000 or so out of the market it will do more harm to the secondary market. Especially as people who really want a signed trollys offload a few prints to get one early while ebay is flooded with them.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling, i guess the point i was making was in short, 4 months ago there were 325 neate prints in existance, now there are 1000 of them. The amount trebled over night and whilst indevidual prints like the 2 portraits are popular there are still 3 times as many neate prints around so they are easier to find. There are now 2600 more micallef prints which has more than doubled his total prints in circulation. Its bound to drag the prices down and probably permenantly. Because every time they start to recover there will be another mass printing and sale. Artists have learned that its an amazing way to make money so they will keep printing them.

Nov/Dec will definitely have a busy market, buy now!

think verbalkint hit it spot on... regardless of difference in new prints coming out, the main point is the quantity of prints available heads north in a hurry, and great artists will only mean great prints... eventually there will be plenty of nice new prints out there for everyone to enjoy, and no need for such high prices for existing prints...

that being said, there will always be a select few prints that will always hold their value, those that stand out above the rest ... so have a good eye and your work will keep its value, but essentially you should only purchase what you love..

the last alternative would be to just buy the originals, 1/1 all the way

It will be very interesting to see what happens in the coming years. I am staying optomistic that we are part of a new progressive art movement that has just begun. There are many great oportunites out there right now to get amazing pieces by inspired artists for a rather fair price. Banksy, AM and Neate are going to be around for a long time. Now is a great time to get involved.

the market may or may not be reaching saturation for neate, micallef etc etc. but not for banksy. hes in a completely different league to the rest and has a global fanbase whereas the others are only known in the UK. even after micallefs LA show! theres no comparison.

I think the popularity of this art scene is growing and growing. Its a good time to buy as prices will inevitably increase at Christmas. As for Banksy, I agree with 'pw' he's the best.

if you want to talk about whats bad for an artists career, how about a relatively unknown artist releasing a signed edition print of 1000?

i think it was a bold move by micallef but its definately gonna flood the market and IMO it could be a big mistake...

PW- I wouldn't describe Micallef as 'relatively unknown' or his decision to release a print edition of 1000 as a mistake.

POW made it clear that the release was an attempt to provide a large number of people with access to Micallef's work- it did that very effectively. As for its long term impact, I doubt that it will have much effect- the GIWIWB prints are already going for two to three times what they were sold for and given that the standard price for other Micallef prints is 2k plus I think that they will probably continue to increase in value. Either way, with originals going for well over 40k I think that he'll pull through