One body authenticates, it issues a torn banknote as its certificate, and it will not touch street work.
Bristol5 weighted checks
Banksy's market is unusually clean for an anonymous artist, because there is exactly one authenticating body and the market accepts nobody else. Pest Control Office authenticates works made for sale; it issues a certificate; and no dealer, auction house or serious collector will transact a Banksy print without one.
The certificate itself is a physical object worth knowing: it carries half of a Di-faced Tenner — Banksy's own ten-pound note artwork — torn in two, with a handwritten code, the matching half retained by Pest Control. It is a deliberately awkward document to forge and a deliberately easy one to check.
The second thing to know is what Pest Control will not do: it does not authenticate street works. Pieces removed from walls are outside the system entirely, which is why that market is treacherous and why removed street pieces sell at auction with much weaker documentation than prints.
Pest Control Office is the sole authenticating authority for Banksy. Works submitted to it and accepted receive a certificate of authenticity. The market treats a Banksy print without Pest Control paperwork as effectively unsaleable at auction, regardless of how convincing the print is.
The certificate incorporates half of a Di-faced Tenner banknote, torn, carrying a handwritten code. Pest Control retains the matching half. That construction means the document cannot be meaningfully photocopied and can be checked against the office's own records.
Pest Control explicitly does not authenticate street works — pieces cut, removed or salvaged from walls. That is a policy position, not an oversight, and it means the removed-street-work market has no authority behind it at all.
Most Banksy screenprints were published by Pictures on Walls in editions with stated sizes, in both signed and unsigned runs, and the edition details are documented. A print offered as a signed edition whose stated edition size does not match the published run is a straightforward problem.
| What you have | Who authenticates it | What the market accepts |
|---|---|---|
| Screenprint, signed or unsigned | Pest Control Office | Certificate with the torn banknote half |
| Canvas or unique work made for sale | Pest Control Office | Certificate |
| Street work removed from a wall | Nobody | Provenance evidence only; no certificate exists |
| Gross Domestic Product items | Pest Control | Original purchase documentation |
The absence of an authenticating authority for removed street work is the defining fact of that market.
Ordered by how much each one settles. The decisive checks are the ones worth your first five minutes; the supporting ones only matter once those are clean.
The certificate incorporates half a Di-faced Tenner, torn, with a handwritten code, and Pest Control holds the matching half. A Banksy print offered without one is unsaleable at auction whatever else is true, and a certificate that is a flat printed sheet with no banknote element is not a Pest Control certificate.
Banksy's screenprints were published in editions of stated sizes, signed and unsigned, and those numbers are documented. A print numbered beyond its published edition, or presented as signed when the image was only issued unsigned, is a fabrication.
A screenprint lays ink in flat, opaque layers with slightly raised edges where the colours meet, and no dot pattern. An inkjet or offset reproduction shows a rosette or a fine regular dot grid under ten-power magnification. This separates a genuine print from a poster in seconds.
Prints are on heavy stock with the edition fraction and, on signed runs, the signature applied in pencil. A pencil signature sits physically on the paper's surface; a printed signature is part of the image and adds nothing. Edition numbers are handwritten in pencil, not printed.
For anything without a Pest Control certificate — removed street work especially — the entire case rests on documented provenance: who removed it, with what permission, and an unbroken chain of ownership since. Assertions are not provenance.
Fake Banksy prints are made in volume and range from obvious inkjet posters to convincing screenprints. Because Pest Control's certificate is the market's gate, most forgery effort now goes into the paperwork rather than the print, and forged certificates circulate.
The other, larger problem is legitimacy rather than forgery: removed street works sold with confident-sounding provenance and no authority behind them at all. Pest Control will not certify them, so no amount of paperwork produces the document the market wants.
Each of these is checked differently. The ones with their own page have enough that is specific to them to be worth reading separately.
The rioter with a bouquet — a signature image with documented editions.
Read within the checks aboveThe banknote artwork whose torn halves became Pest Control's certificate.
Read within the checks aboveThe sandwich-board monkey, in signed and unsigned screenprint editions.
Read within the checks aboveAn early, small edition, which makes edition-size checking especially important.
Read within the checks aboveAuthenticity and value are separate questions, and answering the first is usually a step towards the second. These are broad ranges for honest, unrestored condition — an orientation, never an appraisal.
| Category | Market behaviour | What moves it most |
|---|---|---|
| Signed screenprints with Pest Control certificate | Strong and liquid | Image, edition size, condition |
| Unsigned screenprints with certificate | Well below signed | Image and condition |
| Prints without a certificate | Effectively unsaleable at auction | Nothing; the gate is the certificate |
| Removed street works | Volatile and contested | Provenance chain, and legal title |
The Banksy market is gated by a single authority to a degree no other artist's is. Certification is not a bonus here; it is the market.
Lovenhall ArtThe checks tell you how it was made. The instrument tells you what it appears to be, and roughly what its kind fetches.