It seemed, at the time, like the perfect retirement plan.
Art, after all, only increases in value, and we had the opportunity to buy a
piece by a hot, young, subversive street artist who’s reputation would only
grow as years went by. How could we not jump at the chance?
And, once we owned the piece, selling prints seemed like a
natural next step, a source of income now in addition to retirement income
later, it simply made good business sense. Before long we were selling posters
to anyone who wanted one, giving no thought at all to what flooding the market
thusly might do to the value of the original work.
Of course, the bottom fell out of the market before long.
And, by the time we realized what was happening and tried to sell the original piece,
it was too late. Interest in the artist remained, but that particular work had
lost what value it had due to overexposure. Our own fault, really…
…in hindsight, we should never have allowed our investment
Banksey to become a commercial Banksey.
