Not to sound like a schmuck- but $300-800 fo a vinyl poster is a bit, no it's very rediculous.

For 300-800 one canbuy real artwork.

For 300-800 one can have a photo (including of a painting) blown up and mounted to board.

For 300-800 one can hire a bunch of teenagers to climb the lightpoles and appropriate the banners...

I have to say- I do love the photoshopping of the banners into interior scene photos... classy.

I was lucky enough to find a banner on the ground and it now looks great in my home.

That contradicts what the Met told me a few months ago. I asked them if it was possible to obtain one of the banners they had around town for the Americans in Paris Exhibit. They said all their banners were returned to the manufacturer for recycling, as it helped keep the costs down.

I wouldn't be able to pay $300 and up.... yikes.

$300 for a WEATHERED piece of plastic.

I have to agree with the "too pricey for a sheet of vinyl" crowd, but there is something to be said for the advertising as a work of art, not just the painting or whatnot it represents. Colleges are a good clearing house for stuff like this, too. I used to work for the college-system, and we'd get stacks of promotional materials from area museums--a high percentage of which mysteriously disappeared before they could be hung.

Still, I think it's great to have larger works of art in the home. It seems people are really hesitant to use prints of well-known art. They feel it's valueless because it's mass-produced. I think having posters like this is a good way to hang recognizable art you enjoy, while still keeping a unique, one-of-a-kind feel.

Not to change the subject, but does anyone know where that platform bed in the first pic is from? It looks like the Maly bed from Ligne Roset but just a little bit different.

Too pricey but really beautiful. I would love to have some around my apartment.

I also agree that the prices on these are outrageous, but their website claims that they "partner" with museums to sell these and some of the money goes back to the museum to acquire new art, etc. So, I guess that is better than the thought of someone fishing these out of a dumpster and selling them for $500. Instead, it's rather like when you make a charitable contribution and are given a gift in return, except one that you get to choose as decor for your home.

I’d like to give Apartment Therapy readers some insight into our business and how it affects our pricing. As a companion to BetterWall, we administer a program with 32 art museum around the country called the Recycle & Reuse Program. This innovative program sells banners that are excellent condition on behalf of our art museum partners. Banners that are ripped, in poor condition or cannot be sold because they are not desirable are recycled, keeping tons of vinyl out of landfills each year. In fact, we just reached the milestone of recycling 100 tons of banner material.

By selling some of the banners, we are able to offset the expense of recycling the banner material, a costly process since the durable, fiber-reinforced vinyl which is used for banners is not a standard material for recycling. I believe we’re the only folks in the United States who recycle street banners. Our program is also self-supporting – that is, the museums incur no cost to participate. we take on all of the expense of providing museums with our service including shipping, warehousing and restoring the banners.

As you can imagine, this makes us a very untraditional retail business as we do not control our inventory. everything we have is based on what the museums produce. and because we take all their banners, good and bad, we end up having to incur a fair amount of cost to house, go through and recycle the material. With some museums, about 75% of their banners can be sold and in other cases, only about 10% can be sold. And in many cases, we gets lots of damaged banners in large quantities, tons that is. This factors greatly into our cost.

Another factor that affects cost is additional licenses that we must secure to sell the banners to the public. When we get the banners, the images reproduced have been only cleared for promotional purposes (for use as banners). Copyright law stipulates that additional licenses must be obtained for each use and retail is an additional use. this are not negligible costs, so this tags on more cost, sometimes up to 50% more.

And finally, we share our profits with each museum. So with a purchase, not only do our customers a get a great piece for their homes, they are also supporting the museums and helping the environment.

That’s probably more detail than anyone wants, but it’s the whole story.

Best,
Nicolas Weiser
Co-founder, BetterWall