Identity of Banksy on eBay jumps to almost $1 million

UPDATE: The auction has been pulled from eBay, once again. First it was for not selling an actual item but just information, but then the auction was relisted as selling a piece of paper with Banksy’s name on it. Presumably this time the listing was pulled for just being a joke.

Well, the eBay auction claiming to be selling Banksy’s identity based on tax returns has just gone from a crazy item that a fool could waste $20k on to a complete farce. As of late Monday night here on the East Coast, the bidding has reached $999,999.00! There’s still more than a day left, so I’m hoping it surpasses $1 million, just for laughs.

This whole thing is ridiculous. For one thing, there’s no way that somebody actually used tax returns to figure out Banksy’s identity as he claims, and even if this seller does have Banksy’s identity through some other means and wants to sell it, the original But It Now price of $20,000 was already outrageous. I bet the seller just read this article from The Daily Mail, wrote the name Robin Gunningham on a piece of paper and plans to sell that. That’s what I would do if I wanted to make a quick buck and didn’t care about being a complete asshole. After all, that piece of paper with a name is all that’s for sale in the auction, not any actual records or evidence.

I’m probably taking this whole thing too seriously be even writing about it like this. Does anyone out there know what happens when people renege on eBay bids, even obviously phony ones?

Clearly, eBay should remove this listing again, as they did the first time it went up.

On a related topic, it looks like Banksy has once again hit up the infamous Robbo wall in Camden, London. It hasn’t been confirmed as a Banksy piece, but I’m pretty confident that it is.

Photo by loungerie