Now this was priceless.
British graffiti artist Banksy, whose socially conscious works have commanded six figures at auction, made his biggest statement yet over the weekend — offering his signed original spray paintings for $60 apiece at a streetside stall outside Central Park.
But the deal of a lifetime lured just three buyers in a city known as the center of the art world.
The three lucky customers — including one woman who haggled a 50 percent discount — snatched up eight paintings for a total of $420 during the seven hours an anonymous elderly man manned the booth.
The works have an estimated total value of a quarter-million dollars.
The missed opportunity had New Yorkers besides themselves Monday.
“Wow!!!! How many of us are kicking ourselves now,” tweeted Marianne Russo. “Famous artist Banksy sells original pieces cheap in Central Park.”
“Wow. I was in Central Park this Saturday and TOTALLY missed this,” tweeted Michael Alvarado. “I’m an idiot!!”
“Holy cow. What I wouldn’t have given to have stopped by Central Park on Sat to purchase a Banksy,” tweeted Katie Morse, of Brooklyn.
Some art lovers, however, were more proactive.
One New York Banksy fan posted an ad on Craigslist bright and early, hoping one of the Saturday buyers might part with a canvas.
“I am definitely prepared to pay a very fair premium for the piece,” the seller told The Post in an e-mail.
Banksy had apparently been planning the fire sale for months.
“Two or three months ago, the old guy came by and inquired about using the space,” said Thuptin Kunkhen, 48, who sells art near the same spot outside Central Park.
Kunkhen said the old man — the same who was manning the booth Saturday — asked him how much he made at the stand on a normal day and paid him and a partner about $500 to use the space on Saturday.
“The next day, we heard the paintings were worth over $40,000,” Kunkhen told The Post. “Had he known they were such expensive paintings, we would have bought them all.”
Several men, including a man with a video camera, helped the older man set up the stand, but Kunkhen couldn’t tell whether any of them was the elusive Banksy, whose image may have been revealed last week.
The world-famous street artist couldn’t help but mock the Big Apple’s masses, posting video of the slow sales day on his Web site.
“Yesterday I set up a stall in the park selling 100% authentic original signed Banksy canvases. For $60 each,” the artist wrote in text intercut in the video.
The booth, which consisted of a table and folding fence, was set up off Fifth Avenue at Central Park South next to other art peddlers at around 11 a.m. Saturday. Signs advertised nothing more than “Spray Art” for $60 — with no mention of the reclusive Banksy.
The elderly man went about four hours before making a sale.
The video shows him repeatedly yawning, eating lunch and otherwise looking bored as people strolled by without a second glance at the famous works.
Finally, at 3:30 pm, the first two pieces sold.
“First sale. A lady buys two small canvases for her children. But only after negotiation a 50% discount,” Banksy noted on the video.
Half an hour later, a New Zealand woman bought two of the pieces, paying $120, and earning a kiss from the man selling the art.
The stall minder hit the jackpot at around 5:30 p.m., when a man from Chicago stopped and said he was decorating his new house back home.
“I just need something for the walls,” he told the salesman before buying four large canvases and getting a big hug in return.
That turned out to be the last sale of the day, and Banksy’s street rep closed up shop around 6 p.m. with most of the pieces unsold.
The BBC estimated that the art pieces could be worth as much as $31,000 a piece.
But Banksy won’t be repeating the stunt.
In a note posted to his Web site, the artist wrote: “Please note this was a one-off. The stall will not be there again.”
Among the art lovers kicking themselves for missing out on the clearance sale was Emily Christensen-Flowers, a video producer at NBC News who describes herself as a “street-smart New Yorker” who “studied art history in college.”
While most pedestrians paid the sidewalk setup no mind, Christensen-Flowers actually derided the salesman when she walked by, assuming he was selling knockoffs.
“I know a fake Banksy when I see one — I thought,” Christensen-Flowers wrote on NBC’s Web site after learning each of the signed “knockoffs” was the genuine article.
“All day, I’ve been replaying my brush with Banksy through my head, trying to figure out if I missed any tip-offs that a pot of art-world gold was right under my nose.”
Meanwhile, the Craigslist buyer was still hoping for a bite from one of the buyers.
“I am simply a fan of his and in my late 20s, and not by any means part of the ultra-affluent crowd who his pieces usually end up with on the secondary market,” he said.
“I am in no way looking to get a ‘bargain’ but rather to pay something reasonable — yet enticing for the seller — for a piece that I would like to hold onto for the very long term.”
He also commended Banksy for the pop-up stand idea.
“I believe that he had a very pure intentions in wanting his pieces going into the hands of everyday people, and this is a way of making that statement,” he said.
Banksy is in the middle of a monthlong “residency” in New York, during which he has promised to complete a new work in the city and post it on his Web site.
Some of Banksy’s New York installations have included a slaughterhouse truck filled with stuffed animals touring the Meatpacking District, a concrete “confessional” on cement slabs in Manhattan, a beaver stenciled into a Brooklyn wall and a depiction of war horses sporting goggles behind a chain link fence on Ludlow Street.