The Banksy Prints That Resell for $130,000

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By RC Staff

29 April 2023

2023 has recorded three sales for prints of Banksy’s Girl With Balloon, out of 750 produced in 2004. The artwork featured is one his most popular and iconic, Girl With Balloon. These particular prints gaveled for prices between £70,000-£100,000 GBP, equivalent to around $87-,000-$124,000 USD. Symbolic of the essential popularity and recognition of the artist, these prints sold for just £75 in 2004. Sales of this edition have rapidly increased in the recent years, peaking in 2021 at a price of nearly £330,000.

What are Banksy's Girl With Balloon prints?

Girl With Balloon is one of Banksy’s most recognizable works. First appearing on London’s Waterloo Bridge in 2002, it was a simple stenciled graffiti of a young girl helplessly reaching for her heart-shaped balloon as it drifts away. In the stark, polar style that would come to define Banksy’s work, the bright red balloon is the only source of color in the work.

Shortly after its creation, the work was removed by city officials, to which Banksy would reply by painting the words “THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE” near the former spot of the painting. Both a reference to the hopeful nature of the work itself, and the efforts by city officials to stifle it, Girl With Balloon and the ensuing message of hope became a defining piece of Banksy’s work.

In 2004, the artist would produce a series of prints commemorating the work. A total of 750 would be produced, with the first 150 signed and numbered by the artist. At just £75 per print, the price seems laughable in comparison to the incredible prices reached by Banksy’s artwork in the future.

The history of Girl With Balloon and its prints

The simple answer would be to say that as Banksy transitioned from underground artist to household name, everything he touched shot up in value. While that’s generally true, there’s more going on with these prints than just that.

Prior to 2018, there were relatively few recorded sales for these prints. Early sales in 2008 and 2009 show prints changing hands in the £3,000-£5,000 range. Prices would stay at this point until 2015, when a new high was reached at £17,000. This would mark a steady rise in prices for the print over time.

It should be noted that Girl With Balloon is not just a print. Since its inception in 2004, the piece has been a recurring part of Banksy’s art, appearing and reappearing in locations and mediums across the globe. Often used as a protest piece against war, notable Girls have appeared in Palestine and Syria, as well as during the 2017 general elections in the UK.

As such, it tends to follow that as Girl With Balloon cropped up in new places and contexts, the mythology behind it deepened, and consequentially drove the price of the prints. One of the most infamous examples of this link in value is 2018’s creation of Love Is In The Bin.

What is Banksy's Love Is In The Bin

Love Is In The Bin is the name given to a 2018 work created by Banksy, produced by the partial shredding of a Girl With Balloon painting on canvas. Originally painted around 2006, at some point Banksy fitted the frame with a covert shredder, designed to remotely destroy the painting if it was ever put up for auction.

Immediately after its record-setting sale of £1,042,000, the painting began setting off a loud alarm, and the canvas was run through the shredders. After stopping halfway through the shredding process, the painting was removed from the auction floor. After discussions with the buyer, the sale went forward as planned, and the painting was renamed to Love Is In The Bin.

The resell value of Banksy's prints

Following this, prices of Girl With Balloon prints began to rise, climbing to around £50,000 by the end of 2018. As discussion raged around the creation of Love Is In The Bin, prices for Girl With Balloon prints saw a silent firestorm of bidding, rising from £50,000, to £100,000, to £200,000. In 2021, two separate sales of prints went for more than £320,000, before eventually settling down in price.

October 2021 would see the return of Love Is In The Bin to the auction floor. With a £4-6 million price guide, Love Is In The Bin smashed expectations when it sold for £18,582,000, and set a new record for Banksy’s works.

Girl With Balloon prints would respond to this historic event with a rally in prices, climbing from an average of £100,000 to £170,000 following the sale. Following this, prices gradually deflated, coming to reach the £100,000 mark again in 2022, with a sale in late July.

It’s remarkable to consider that £100,000 is a low point for the value of these prints, especially when you take into account that there are 750 of them in existence. Additionally, these values are all for the unsigned, unnumbered editions. Signed editions have more or less gone for triple that the unsigned have.

It’s hard to say what the future holds for Girl With Balloon prints. However, it’s clear that as long as Girl With Balloon remains a constant in Banksy’s work, their value will continue to fluctuate and appreciate over time. It’s possible that in 5 years, people will be looking at £100,000 for an unsigned print as an opportunity they should have taken, much like how £50,000 in 2015 would have been a good buy.