The unidentified man claimed to have removed the piece — which looks like one of the artist’s“It looked loose. Went over, pulled it off basically, a little bit of a tug,” the man told one of the show’s art experts,“I know what it is,” the man added. “It was around 2004, basically trying to get a valuation of it.”“The thing about Banksy, and he’s not the first to have done this, of course, is that he manages his brand very, very carefully indeed,” Maas explained.
“There’s a website where you can go in and you can apply for a certificate of authenticity of his work,” he continued. “And then he, or his team, will issue one if they think that, first of all, it’s authentic, and B, they think that it has not been removed from the public domain for which it was painted, and into the private. Now, that might be a reason not to issue a certificate of authenticity.
“I know it’s real,” he added. “Because Brighton was hit quite a bit by Banksy when he was down there around that time.”I think the message here is that, if you do see a piece of graffiti art out there, leave it, leave it for the public. I’m not lecturing you. I’m just saying, without that certificate, it’s just very difficult to sell. With it, it might be worth £20,000 [around $26,000]. Without it, you’re nowhere.
It’s unclear whether the piece was actually by Banksy, although it does bear all of his hallmarks. Banksy’s publicist did not immediately reply to HuffPost’s request for comment.