Choose Your Weapon

A wall in Bermondsey

The image first appeared in 2010 as a stencil on the wall of The Grange pub in Bermondsey, South London. A young man stands in profile, hood up, a bandana over his face, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a heavy chain. On the end of the chain a dog barks. The man is rendered in Banksy's near-photographic stencil style; the dog is a flat white cartoon, drawn in the unmistakable hand of Keith Haring.

The wall did not stay exposed for long. It was boarded over shortly after it appeared, later reframed and covered in Perspex, and by 2016 the Perspex itself had reportedly been plastered with posters and flyers. A mural about tension on the street was itself swallowed by the street.

Most readings start with the moment. Britain in the late 2000s was anxious about hooded teenagers and gang culture and about aggressive dogs kept as an extension of masculine street power. One guide ties the figure to the political debate around David Cameron's 'hug a hoodie' remarks. The title offers a second reading: the weapon might be the dog, or it might be the image itself.

Keith Haring's dog on a chain

The barking dog is one of Keith Haring's most recognizable symbols. It runs through his work from his early New York subway drawings to merchandise sold in his Pop Shops, and its simple shape reflects his interest in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Depending on the picture, his dogs signal alarm or action, stand in for authority and police power, or dance and laugh as stand-ins for the artist.

In 1990, a few months before his death, Haring gave the barking dog a place among five signature motifs in a set of prints called Icons. Twenty years later Banksy borrowed it outright. The quotation is respectful, but it changes the dog: the free, alert creature of 1980s New York is now leashed to a masked youth in London and made to perform as a threat.

That is the joke and the argument. Haring and Banksy both built their reputations by drawing in public, fast, in a language anyone could read. Choose Your Weapon chains two generations of that language together and leaves the viewer to decide which end of the chain holds the power.

The queue that broke the system

Pictures on Walls released the print in 2010 through three channels: its gallery in East London, a second venue in Soho, and an online lottery. Eight colorways went on sale at the East London gallery (Bright Pink, Bright Purple, Dark Orange, Khaki, Light Orange, Slate, Soft Yellow and Turquoise), three in Soho (Lemon, Olive and Magenta), and three through the lottery (Red, Sky Blue and Green), alongside the main grey edition of 100. Gold, Silver and White were VIP editions never offered to the public.

Each print cost GBP 450. The publisher announced that Banksy was donating all royalties to Voina, the Russian art collective, two of whose members were then in jail in St. Petersburg. Voina was known for drawing a giant penis on a road bridge opposite the KGB headquarters and for overturning police patrol cars in one night to protest police corruption.

When word of the release reached inboxes, a queue formed outside the East London gallery from 10 p.m. on the Friday, and by sale time the scene was described as bedlam. People who had waited lost their places to queue jumpers, and some complained to the publisher. The answer was a special edition of 58 prints in Warm Grey, sold to those who had missed out and now known as the Queue Jumping or Queue Jumper edition.

Collectors often describe the release as the end of an era: one of the last, or by some accounts the last, Banksy print sold through the old Pictures on Walls public-release model before demand overwhelmed it.

Eighteen colorways, one image

Every version shares the same composition on a square 70 by 70 centimeter sheet of wove paper. What changes is the ground color. The fourteen regular colorways are Bright Pink, Bright Purple, Dark Orange, Khaki, Light Orange, Slate, Soft Yellow, Turquoise, Lemon, Olive, Magenta, Red, Sky Blue and Green, with Fluoro Green released afterward; each was signed in an edition of 25. The Gold, Silver and White VIP editions were also 25 each, and some White prints are hand-finished with red dots.

Signed impressions are signed in crayon in a matching color at lower right and numbered in matching crayon at lower left. Beyond the colorways sit the Cool Grey edition of 100, the Warm Grey Queue Jumping edition of 58, and 58 signed artist's proofs spread across 17 colorways, including a Dark Blue and a Dark Purple not found in the regular editions.

Edition totals in circulation do not always agree. One dealer guide describes a total of 1,000 signed prints across 19 colorways in editions of 20 to 25, figures that do not match the colorway-by-colorway counts given by catalog sources. The counts above follow the catalog.

From GBP 450 to a trophy and back

The early secondary market was modest by later standards. A Khaki impression sold in Los Angeles in October 2012 for $17,500, and a Dark Orange impression brought GBP 10,000 in London in December 2013. By 2018 and 2019 colorways were selling at about $50,000 to $65,000.

Then the boom arrived. An impression numbered 17/25 in Lemon sold online in September 2019 for GBP 52,500 and, recorded with the same number, sold in Hong Kong in December 2020 for HKD 1,890,000 ($243,860). On March 18, 2021, a Fluoro Green impression estimated at GBP 40,000 to 60,000 sold online for GBP 302,400 ($420,335), the auction record for the image. A VIP Gold impression reached GBP 239,400 ($316,010) in March 2022.

The correction followed. Through 2024 and 2025 most colorways sold between about $60,000 and $110,000: a Sky Blue impression brought GBP 81,900 ($105,815) on April 1, 2025, and a Dark Orange sold in New Zealand in July 2025 for the equivalent of $77,195. Several impressions failed to sell at all in 2021, 2023 and 2024. Color now matters more than in most Banksy editions, with collectors treating individual colorways almost as separate works.

The numbers

Medium

Screenprint in colors on wove paper

Dimensions

Sheet 70 x 70 cm (27 1/2 x 27 1/2 in)

Edition

25 signed per colorway (15 colorways including Fluoro Green, plus Gold, Silver and White VIP); also Cool Grey 100, Warm Grey Queue Jumping 58, and 58 signed artist's proofs

Signature

Signed in matching-color crayon lower right, numbered in matching-color crayon lower left

Catalogue raisonne

None stated; impressions are identified by colorway, edition number and Pest Control certificate

Current owners

Dispersed among private collectors; no public collection holding is documented in the sources

Timeline

1. 1990

   Keith Haring includes his barking dog in Icons, a set of prints made a few months before his death.

2. 2010

   Banksy stencils the hooded figure and Haring-style dog on the wall of The Grange pub in Bermondsey, South London.

3. 2010

   Pictures on Walls releases the print at GBP 450 through its East London gallery, a Soho venue and an online lottery.

4. 2010

   After queue jumping at the release, a Warm Grey edition of 58 is made for buyers who missed out.

5. Oct 29, 2012

   A Khaki impression sells at auction in Los Angeles for $17,500.

6. 2016

   The Perspex over the Bermondsey wall is reportedly covered in posters and flyers.

7. Oct 4, 2018

   A VIP Silver impression sells at auction in New York for $68,750.

8. Sep 24, 2019

   Lemon impression 17/25 sells online for GBP 52,500.

9. Dec 4, 2020

   A Lemon impression numbered 17/25 sells in Hong Kong for HKD 1,890,000 ($243,860).

10. Mar 18, 2021

    A Fluoro Green impression sells online for GBP 302,400 ($420,335), the auction record for the image.

11. Mar 18, 2021

    Queue Jumping impression 19/58 sells online for GBP 201,600, the record for that edition.

12. Mar 15, 2022

    VIP Gold impression 5/25 sells online for GBP 239,400 ($316,010).

13. Apr 1, 2025

    Sky Blue impression 12/25 sells online for GBP 81,900 ($105,815).

14. Jul 29, 2025

    Dark Orange impression 8/25 sells in New Zealand for NZD 129,730 ($77,195).

The world in 2010

• Jan 12, 2010

  A magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastates Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

• Jan 24, 2010

  Banksy's film Exit Through the Gift Shop premieres at the Sundance Film Festival.

• Apr 3, 2010

  The first iPad goes on sale.

• Apr 20, 2010

  The Deepwater Horizon platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers.

• May 6, 2010

  The UK general election produces a hung parliament, and a 36-minute flash crash hits U.S. stock markets.

• Jul 11, 2010

  Spain wins the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

• Nov 28, 2010

  WikiLeaks begins releasing more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables.

• Dec 17, 2010

  A Tunisian street vendor's self-immolation sets off the revolution that grows into the Arab Spring.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Choose Your Weapon is number 45 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (43 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The dog in the print is not Banksy's drawing style at all; it is a direct quotation of Keith Haring's barking dog.
• Banksy's royalties from the GBP 450 prints were announced as a donation to Voina, a Russian art group two of whose members were then in jail.
• The Warm Grey edition of 58 exists only because people who queued for the release lost their places to queue jumpers.
• The record for the image, GBP 302,400, was set by Fluoro Green, a colorway released after the original fourteen.
• The Bermondsey original was boarded up soon after it appeared and later disappeared behind Perspex and fly-posters.