Shepard Fairey Revolution Woman 2005: 130.9% CAGR - Investment Data and Value Guide
The Shepard Fairey Revolution Woman 2005 has achieved a verified 5-year compound annual growth rate of 130.9%, based on 6 documented sale transactions tracked in Gauntlet Gallery's database of 32,614 Shepard Fairey comparable sales. The median sale price is $600. The most recent recorded transaction was $1,499.99, recorded on June 15, 2023. For an edition of 50 copies, this represents a confluence of extreme scarcity, political iconography that has only grown more culturally resonant over two decades, and the broader institutional validation that Shepard Fairey's market has received since his work entered major museum collections. Collectors who acquired this print near its original release price are sitting on one of the strongest documented returns in the OBEY Giant catalog.
The Market Data
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Verified Sales Count | 6 |
| Median Price | $600 |
| Most Recent Sale | $1,499.99 (June 15, 2023) |
| 5-Year CAGR | 130.9% |
| Edition Size | 50 |
| Year | 2005 |
Verified Sales Count (6): A low transaction count on a print this old is itself a scarcity signal — holders are not liquidating. Each confirmed sale builds a price floor. Our database methodology requires verifiable sale records, so every data point here represents a real cleared transaction, not an asking price.
Median Price ($600): The median, rather than the mean, controls for outlier transactions in either direction. At $600, this is the midpoint of the verified distribution — the price a buyer should expect to pay for a mid-market example with standard provenance.
Most Recent Sale ($1,499.99, June 15, 2023): The most recent transaction is the single most forward-looking data point in secondary market analysis. At $1,499.99, this sale sits at 2.5x the median, which suggests that well-documented, condition-strong examples are now trading at a material premium. This is consistent with the print's age (21 years) and the continued global relevance of Fairey's activist imagery.
5-Year CAGR (130.9%): Compound annual growth rates above 100% are rare in the collectibles market. For context, the S&P 500 has historically returned approximately 10% annually. A 130.9% CAGR places this print in the category of high-conviction alternative assets — though as with all collectibles, past performance does not guarantee future returns, and the low transaction count means individual sales carry high weight in the calculation.
Edition Size (50): Fifty copies is a micro-edition in the context of Fairey's broader catalog, which includes open-edition posters and editions ranging from 100 to 450. The smaller the edition, the fewer examples available to meet any given level of demand.
What Is the Revolution Woman 2005
The Revolution Woman 2005 is a signed and numbered screenprint issued by OBEY Giant Art, Shepard Fairey's print studio. The image draws from Fairey's recurring engagement with revolutionary female iconography — a visual vocabulary he built across the mid-2000s in dialogue with Cold War propaganda aesthetics, Soviet graphic design, and third-world liberation movement posters. The figure is rendered in Fairey's signature flat-graphic style: bold silhouette, high-contrast color fields, and hand-lettered or stencil-derived typography that anchors the image within a specific political-aesthetic tradition.
The year 2005 was a productive period for Fairey's print studio. The Iraq War had entered its third year, the anti-war and anti-Bush cultural moment was at its peak energy in American underground art, and Fairey was consolidating his move from street-paste campaigns into limited-edition fine art prints sold through galleries. The Revolution Woman fits that inflection point precisely — it is simultaneously a piece of activist street-art culture and a gallery-ready collectible designed for long-term holding.
The color palette is characteristically Fairey: deep reds, muted olive greens, cream or off-white backgrounds, and black linework that defines the figure with graphic precision. The technique is screenprint on heavy cream stock, the same archival-quality substrate used throughout Fairey's signed edition catalog from this period. The composition places the subject in a heroic register — upward gaze, strong posture — drawing explicitly on the visual grammar of revolutionary portraiture while recontextualizing it within contemporary art culture.
What Drives This Appreciation
Edition size of 50. In the fine art print market, edition size is the primary mechanical driver of secondary market scarcity. An edition of 50 means a global pool of 50 copies — minus any that have been lost, damaged, or are held by institutions that will never sell. In practice, the effective float for a 21-year-old print in this edition range is likely 30 to 40 examples. When demand from a growing collector base encounters that fixed, shrinking supply, prices respond accordingly.
Cultural durability of the subject matter. Fairey's revolutionary female imagery has not aged into irrelevance — if anything, the themes of resistance, female power, and political activism have intensified in cultural salience over the two decades since this print was made. Works whose subject matter remains culturally active tend to outperform those whose imagery is historically specific and has receded from contemporary discourse. The Revolution Woman sits in the durable category.
OBEY Giant's no-reprint policy. OBEY Giant does not reprint editions. Once the 50 copies of Revolution Woman 2005 were sold, production ended. This is a structural feature of Fairey's print business that creates a hard supply ceiling. Demand has only one direction to push prices when supply is fixed: up. Combined with the studio's growing institutional reputation — Fairey's work has been acquired by the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, and major private collections — the demand side of the equation continues to expand against that fixed 50-copy ceiling.
Age and documentation premium. At 21 years old, this print is old enough to be considered vintage within the contemporary print market. Prints that have survived two decades in collector hands with clean provenance chains command a documentation premium that newer prints cannot access. The age also filters out casual holders — what remains in circulation is held by collectors who understand what they have.
Authentication
All Shepard Fairey signed editions from this period are authenticated exclusively through OBEY Giant studio documentation. There is no third-party authentication body with recognized authority over Fairey's print output. When evaluating any example of the Revolution Woman 2005, verify the following physical characteristics:
- Pencil signature, lower right: Fairey signs in pencil, not pen. Pen signatures on prints from this era are a red flag.
- Pencil edition number, lower left or lower right: The number will appear as XX/50 in pencil. Verify that the denominator reads 50.
- OBEY blind-deboss seal: Prints from this period carry a blind-embossed OBEY stamp. This is a physical indentation in the paper, not a printed mark.
- Paper stock: The substrate should be a heavy cream or off-white archival paper. Thin, bright-white paper is inconsistent with authentic Fairey editions from this period.
- Certificate of Authenticity: Original CoA from OBEY Giant, where present, significantly strengthens provenance. Not all examples will have surviving CoAs at this age, but their presence is a premium signal.
Gauntlet Gallery has authenticated Shepard Fairey prints since 2012 and applies these physical standards to every piece we offer. Our authentication process is documented in the Shepard Fairey Collector Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Shepard Fairey Revolution Woman 2005 worth?
Based on 6 verified sales in Gauntlet Gallery's database of 32,614 Shepard Fairey transactions, the Revolution Woman 2005 has a median sale price of $600. The most recent recorded sale was $1,499.99 on June 15, 2023. Condition, provenance documentation, and framing state will all influence where a specific example lands within that range.
Has the Revolution Woman 2005 appreciated in value?
Yes. The verified 5-year CAGR is 130.9%. The trajectory from the median of $600 to the most recent sale at $1,499.99 illustrates the direction of the market for strong examples. This is a documented appreciation rate, not a projection.
How rare is the Revolution Woman 2005?
The edition size is 50. Combined with OBEY Giant's no-reprint policy and 21 years of natural attrition among surviving copies, the effective float of available examples in the secondary market is substantially smaller than 50. Only 6 sales are documented in our database over the measurable window, which reflects how infrequently holders are selling.
Where can I buy the Revolution Woman 2005?
Browse Gauntlet Gallery's authenticated Shepard Fairey inventory at gauntlet.gallery/collections/shepard-fairey. Gauntlet Gallery has specialized in Shepard Fairey prints since 2012 and applies rigorous authentication standards to every piece we offer.
Browse authenticated Shepard Fairey prints: gauntlet.gallery/collections/shepard-fairey
Read the full Shepard Fairey Collector Guide: gauntlet.gallery/blogs/editorial/shepard-fairey-collector-guide
Market data sourced from Gauntlet Gallery's proprietary database of 32,614 verified Shepard Fairey secondary market transactions. All CAGR figures are calculated from documented sale records. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Gauntlet Gallery has specialized in authenticated Shepard Fairey prints since 2012.