[güttsfükk]

Tuesday, September 09, 2008, 08:30

A PRANKSTER from Derbyshire who took the world by storm with his fake fairy creations is now displaying his models at a city art gallery and enjoying success in America.

Dan Baines, 33, first hit the headlines in April last year, when he offered for sale what he claimed were the mummified remains of a dead fairy on an internet website.

News of the unusual item, which sold for £280, soon spread and sparked media interest from America, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa.

But when the Evening Telegraph tracked down Mr Baines days later, he admitted making the model as part of an April Fool prank.

Since then, he has created more models and has taken them to the US, where art galleries in New York, Las Vegas, Chicago and have been selling the tiny sculptures for up to £500.


Mr Baines, who moved from Derby in 2002 to work for a law firm in London, is now putting his work on sale at The Fine Art Gallery, in Sadler Gate.

He said: "Everything I've sold has gone to the States and now I'm looking to go full circle and get back into the UK market. Since the April Fool's prank, I've had thousands of e-mails from all over the world but it doesn't seem to have been so huge over here in Britain."

The Derby gallery is displaying three fairies models, made from a variety of plastic, metal and insect parts. They are on sale for between £325 and £500.

Mr Baines said: "The sculptures are quite gruesome. The fairies are not pretty with long, blonde hair, like many people tend to think of them as.

"The wings are made from real insects and some people in America are insistent that they are real, which has contributed a lot to their success over there.

"Some people do actually believe fairies are real and in America there's a bigger market over there for gothic, Victorian sculptures. But in Britain, people are not so fussed.

Gary Newton, co-runner of The Fine Art Gallery, said he hoped the eerie models would attract more people to his business.

He said: "They're exceedingly realistic and quite sinister. It's something that is completely different from a collector's point of view – they look very bizarre."

He said customers would be told the models were fake but he expected some to still believe they were real.

Mr Baines believes the success of the fairies in other countries across the world will help to spark greater interest in the UK market. He said: "I'm hoping to take advantage of Derbyshire's fairy folklore."

[stevus_maximus]

Here in the States, most of the fairies wear pink.

[güttsfükk]

Originally Posted by stevus_maximus ↗

Here in the States, most of the fairies wear pink.

couldn't help myself

[stevus_maximus]

Originally Posted by parasyte ↗

couldn't help myself

Well met!

[GODREKR]

I've seen this guys work. He makes mermaids, aliens and sea monsters too. He's pretty good.
Oh, and nice steve poster.

[SAMMY82]

The Dead fairy hoax was an April Fools' Day prank in 2007. The prankster, a magicians' prop maker, managed to sell his creation, the fake corpse of a fairy, on an internet auction for nearly £300.

A few days before April 1, 2007, Dan Baines, a 31-year-old illusion designer for magicians from London, posted on his website images of the "corpse" of an unknown eight-inch creation.The unusual corpse was claimed to be the mummified remains of a fairy which was discovered by a dog walker at Firestone Hill in Duffield, Derbyshire. The remains, as shown in the pictures, were complete with ears, wings, hair, skin, teeth and claimed to ‘have been examined by anthropologists and forensic experts who can confirm the body is genuine’. According to the website, X-rays of the 'fairy' showed that its body's structure was the same as that of a child. The bones, however, were described to be ‘hollow like those of a bird, making them particularly light.’

In spite of the coming of April Fool's Day, the website received feedback from a large number of fairy believers, accumulating over 20,000 hits in one day. On April 1st, Baines appended a note to the website, thanking the readers for expressing their interest in his story and acknowledging that the fairy corpse was fake. He wrote: "Even if you believe in fairies, as I personally do, there will always have been an element of doubt in your mind that would suggest the remains are a hoax. However, the magic created by the possibility of the fairy being real is something you will remember for the rest of your life." Subsequently, Baines listed the mummified fairy on eBay and the model attracted nearly 40 bids. The highest at the close of the sale was made by a private art collector in the United States and the fairy was sold for £280.

Baines received hundreds of emails from the Internet readers, in which he had heard all sorts of comments including people who say they've seen exactly the same things. 'There was one person who was quite upset because I revealed the place where the fairy was found.' - he said. When Baines admitted that the dead fairy was a hoax, and that the model was in fact created by himself as an April Fools' prank, there were people who still believed that the mummified fairy was genuine. It was noted that the number of queries sent to Baines regarding the dead fairy didn't slow down after the revelation of his hoax. After the event, Baines described the response to his prank as uncanny and that it had taken him up to four hours a day to respond to all the emails he had been receiving regarding the fairy.

[SAMMY82]

pics

[NurseBettie]

That even looks lame!

[smackem]

I dont think it looks lame, I like creativity.
Id so try to pick that off my my rifle, though.

[Malekith]

Yeah seen this before. Looks quite good I think.