DEATH NYC Shark Graffiti $100 Bills Signed Ltd Ed Print COA Street Pop Art: Collector Guide — What It Is, What It Is Worth
Six crisp $100 bills become the killing floor. A graffiti-bombed great white shark tears through Benjamin Franklins as if currency itself were chum — Wall Street meets Jaws, and money is the apex predator. This is the DEATH NYC Shark Graffiti $100 Bills print: a hand-signed limited edition of 50–100 copies, 18x13 inches on premium stock, issued with a gold embossed Certificate of Authenticity, and retailing at $100. It is one of the most direct financial-satire images in the Death NYC catalog — and one of the most collectible.
The Cultural Collision
Death NYC is a master of the unexpected mashup — placing recognizable pop-culture imagery in contexts that reframe both elements. Here the collision is deliberate and layered. On one side: the $100 bill, America's most globally recognized symbol of wealth, power, and aspiration. Benjamin Franklin's calm portrait, the Federal Reserve seal, the ornate engraving — all instantly legible to anyone on earth. On the other: a great white shark lunging through the bills, graffiti-tagged in raw street lettering, all teeth and kinetic violence.
The visual argument is efficient and savage. Money doesn't just circulate — it hunts. Finance is predatory. The shark, already cultural shorthand for ruthless aggression (think Gordon Gekko, think trading-floor aggression), becomes inseparable from the currency it destroys. The graffiti bombing grounds it firmly in street art's tradition of reclaiming symbols of institutional power and defacing them in public. The result is simultaneously a commentary on capitalism, a piece of high-craft printmaking, and a piece of wall art that commands a room.
Death NYC: The Artist
Death NYC is an anonymous street artist who emerged around 2010–2012, working primarily in New York City. The artist's identity remains deliberately concealed — a lineage shared with Banksy, whose anonymity amplifies rather than diminishes the work's cultural weight. Death NYC draws directly from Banksy's tradition of subversive stencil work, Andy Warhol's appropriation of consumer imagery, and Jean-Michel Basquiat's channeling of raw urban energy into fine-art contexts. The name itself signals intent: death as the great equalizer, the one force that strips away wealth, celebrity, and brand identity alike.
The work is commentary — on consumerism, celebrity worship, the collision of high culture and street culture, and the absurdity of the values we assign to images. Death NYC takes the logos, characters, and faces we've been trained to revere — Disney icons, luxury fashion houses, famous paintings, global celebrities — and repositions them in contexts that force a second look. Prints are issued in small, documented editions, each hand-signed and dated by the artist, giving them the provenance structure of fine art while keeping the street-art ethos intact.
Edition and Authentication
This print was produced in a limited edition of 50–100 copies. Each copy is hand-signed and dated directly by Death NYC, and individually numbered within the edition. The format is 18x13 inches on premium archival-quality stock — large enough to dominate a wall, precise enough to reward close inspection of the graffiti linework and currency engraving detail.
Authentication centers on the gold embossed COA card included with each print. The seal is physically raised — embossed into the card stock — not printed flat. Run a fingernail across an authentic seal and you will feel the raised texture. A printed-flat gold circle is the most common tell of a reproduction. The combination of hand signature, edition number, and raised-seal COA creates a three-point authentication chain that is standard for the Death NYC catalog and well-understood by secondary market buyers and auction specialists.
Why Collectors Buy This
The Shark Graffiti $100 Bills print sits at the intersection of three distinct collector communities — and that overlap is exactly what drives secondary market demand. Street art collectors are drawn to Death NYC's documented provenance, small editions, and direct lineage from Banksy-era stencil work. Financial and Wall Street culture enthusiasts — a large and growing segment of art buyers — connect immediately with the imagery; this is the kind of piece that hangs in a trading firm lobby or a hedge fund partner's office as both decoration and statement. And pop-culture collectors who track Death NYC's broader catalog recognize the currency motif as one of the artist's recurring and most sought-after themes.
The economics are straightforward. At $100 retail with a COA, this is authentic, documented, limited-edition street art at a price point that removes the barrier to entry. Death NYC prints in popular motifs and smaller editions of 30–50 have regularly achieved 2–5x appreciation on the secondary market within 12–24 months of release. A $100 entry on a signed, numbered, COA-backed print in an edition of 50–100 is not speculative — it is a historically grounded position in a category with strong resale velocity and a global collector base.
FAQ
Is this Death NYC print authenticated?
Yes. Every authentic Death NYC print in this edition includes a gold embossed Certificate of Authenticity (COA) card. The seal is physically raised — not printed flat — and is the primary marker of authenticity. The print is also hand-signed and individually numbered by the artist. When purchasing, verify the raised texture of the gold seal by touch.
How many copies of this Death NYC print exist?
This Death NYC Shark Graffiti $100 Bills print was produced in a limited edition of 50–100 copies. Each copy is individually numbered, making the edition finite and verifiable. The edition size is documented on the accompanying COA card.
What is this Death NYC print worth?
The current retail price is $100. On the secondary market, Death NYC prints in popular motifs and small editions have historically achieved 2–5x appreciation within 12–24 months of original release. At $100 with a gold embossed COA, this is an accessible, authenticated entry point into street art collecting with genuine appreciation potential supported by secondary market data.
Browse Death NYC prints and other authenticated street art at Gauntlet Gallery.