Banksy Love Rat Speed Limit Road Sign, London 2000 To 2004, Early Stencil With Red Heart
Banksy Love Rat Speed Limit Road Sign, London 2000 To 2004, Early Stencil With Red Heart
- Dispatch
- Prepared and sent from Tokyo within 7–14 days, often sooner, or as arranged
- Arrival
- Vereinigte Staaten · usually 4–7 days after dispatch, insured and tracked Check the Shipping Flowchart here
- Import
Duties and customs · View the estimate
A guide for this piece: about $7,043, based on the 10% US charge on the declared value of goods made in Japan.
The final figure is set by US Customs and depends on where the piece was made and the kind of object it is. Many antiques over a century old carry no ordinary duty; most jewellery and leather goods add a single-digit rate.
With EMS, any charge is collected by your postal service on delivery. For pieces of significant value we can often arrange duties prepaid before dispatch.
How the estimate is reached · Ask for a figure on this piece
- Character
- QuietResplendent Resplendent 8.5 of 10 ·
- Replies
- Within one Tokyo business day · Ask the curator team
- Guarantee
- Authenticity guaranteed · How we grade
Every piece is measured by hand, in centimetres as Japan measures. Please allow 1–2 cm (about ½ inch) for the give of the material and the hand that held the tape.
Where each figure is taken · View the plate
Print, painting and frame
Condition report
Very Good
- Giftable
- Mint
- Excellent
- Very Good
- Good
- Honest Wear
- As Found
A heart at thirty
For the collector who wants an early, carefully cut stencil.
Best for: Street art collections with room for a large object
Condition notes
Kept as it left the street: weather, scratches, old fixings and paint loss are part of its history. No restoration is recorded.
Assessed from photographs and descriptionReport dated 14 November 2026
Grades, ratings and commentary are given to the best of our ability, knowledge and experience, and condition remains partly a matter of personal perception. What we stand behind without qualification is authenticity, truthful description and provenance, to the best of our knowledge. How we grade
Freight piece: please confirm delivery before purchase
This piece travels in a crate or by freight rather than standard mail, and may need careful dismantling before it can be packed. The shipping shown at checkout is an estimate. Japonista reserves the right to determine the final handling, crating and freight cost when your order is received, according to the piece, the destination and carrier conditions at that time.
We advise requesting a delivery quote before checkout. If the final cost is higher than the amount paid, we send the difference for your approval before dispatch. Your piece is held for you until it is settled.
Questions about delivery? Write to the curator deskAcquired by private invoice
Pieces of this calibre are reserved personally rather than through online checkout. Request the piece and the curator desk confirms availability, delivery and your invoice, payable by bank transfer or Wise. The piece is held for you while your transfer arrives.
Reserve this pieceAll sales are final. Please read our refund policy before purchase.
Examined in Tokyo, one price, insured to your door. How buying from Japonista works · Join the Circle, free
A thirty miles an hour sign on a square white backing, with a rat that has just painted a dripping red heart across the numerals.
The Piece
The red ring and black 30 sit on a square plate. Over the zero a heart has been brushed in red and left to run, and the rat stands beside it holding the brush, cut in fine black stencil work. Red spray trails across the lower rim. The back keeps two vertical fixing bars and the dirt of the street.
The former keeper, a private collector in London, recorded it as found there between 2000 and 2004. It has been left uncleaned since it came down.
The Image and Its Street Life
The rat is the animal that made the artist famous. Hated, hunted and impossible to remove, it became the emblem of the small citizen who answers power back, and from the late nineties it appeared on kerbs, doors and street furniture across Bristol and London, usually at ankle height and usually up to no good. Road signs were among the first surfaces the artist used. An altered sign works twice: once as an order from the state, and once as the joke that undoes it. Signs made for English councils carry the label of their maker on the back, and that label is part of how these pieces are read.
Details
- Work: Love Rat
- Support: Aluminium road sign on square backing
- Medium: Spray paint, stencil and brushed paint
- History: London, 2000 to 2004
Sizes are measured by hand; please allow a small margin.
Condition
- Kept as it left the street: weather, scratches, old fixings and paint loss are part of its history.
- No restoration is noted.
- Every photograph is part of the description.
Condition grade B (good) on the Japanese scale; see Japanese condition ranks, explained.
Authenticity & Care
This piece is offered as a street work by the artist on the strength of its recorded history, the marks it carries and the papers shown in the photographs. Pest Control, the office that speaks for the artist, does not certify works taken from the street, and no certificate from that office accompanies it. Collectors who wish to examine the history in full, or to arrange an independent opinion, are invited to write to the Desk before buying. Examined and photographed in Japan before dispatch.
Delivery from Japan
Packed by hand in Japan in a rigid case and sent insured by express freight; because of its size the delivery charge is quoted and agreed with you before purchase. Import duties and taxes, where applicable, are payable on arrival. Every sale is final; please ask anything you wish to know before you buy, and see our published policy.
Considered offers are welcome through Send an Offer, and each one is reviewed personally.
Concierge
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