This person thought shredding their £40,000 Banksy print would make it double in value - it went completely wrong

In a stunt that has now become internationally famous, on Friday 5 October, Banksy's 'Girl With A Balloon' self destructed right after it was sold for more than £1m at auction at Sotheby's.

After the painting self destructed, it's thought that the work increased in value, with art sales site My Art Broker.com predicting that it could have added a minimum of 50 per cent to its sale value, potentially raising its value to £2m.

Discussing the stunt on their Twitter account, they wrote:

In its shredded state and we'd estimate #Banksy has added at a minimum 50% to it's value, possibly as high as being worth £2m.

Taking to their Twitter account on Saturday, the art experts also attempted to warn owners of the dangers of destroying their own prints:

However, it appears that some people ignored the advice.

Now, in apparent 'copy cat' stunts, people have been reportedly shredding their own Banksy prints, worth tens of thousands of pounds, in a bid to increase their values, too, however it's massively backfired.

According to the art experts at MyArtBroker.com, the owner of a Banksy print thought to be worth £40,000 has shredded it themselves with a Stanley knife, and is now demanding that it goes on sale for a minimum of £80,000.

While Banksy's stunt involved a built in shredder and a remote device, this 'do it yourself' attempt is reported to have had the opposite effect, and the people at MyArtBroker.com are saying that the mint condition print has now reduced in value to a measly £1.

Ouch.

Commenting on the shredding, Ian Syer, MyArtBroker co-founder commented:

Banksy is unique to the art world. No other artist captures the hearts and minds of the public like he does.

However, when Banksy does something crazy like shredding his own artwork, it will naturally have a dramatic affect on values.

What this person today seems to have done is needlessly ruin a print worth around £40,000 and reduce its value to almost nothing.

We strongly recommend nobody else takes valuable art and tries to cash in on what history will judge a simply brilliant stunt.

There are limited numbers of Girl With Balloon prints in the world, today, we lost one and it's a crying shame.

HT LadBible

More: Banksy painting shredded immediately after selling for over £1m

More: Banksy has revealed how he did his Sotheby's prank but reactions are mixed to the stunt