American animation cels

Wow. Those dealers represent the most typical bloated brick and mortar animation galleries, from their bad web site designs to the impossibly inflated prices (when they even bother to list a price instead of "ask for price and availability"). Sure it's a more than three year old thread, but, c'mon, that's just bad advice unless someone is desperately seeking something specifically on those sites.

That thread was started I think (if my memory serves me correctly) to "be open" about American animation. At the time, there were not too many non-Japanese anime art collecting members here, and we didn't know where to get'em!

We (mods, admins.) were seeking a way to broaden the scope of the site in several different directions, by nationality, language, and art. I don't think we really considered prices or website designs, but wanted to at least post American anime art that was "out there", especially to anyone that felt that here was not the place to have American animation displayed.

At least that was my angle. The site has been slowly evolving over the years it seems to encompass a lot more than was originally intended for this "experiment of Jason's".

A lot has changed in regards to collecting US animation art in the last three years. Cels have turned up from series no one ever expected to see cels from.

I definitetly don't recommend the links the first person posted, aside from Cartoondepot.com (Lewis Galleries), who have had some very awesome cels in the past. Barker and American Royal Arts have always been pretty stupid dealers that did not cater to the collector market looking for anything other than sericels and commerically released animation art. ARA has had some awesome Spawn cels, but very expensive.

Ebay really has become the source for American cels, just because dealers like Dadiskguy and Icollect have come on the scene w/ cels that no one has ever seen on eBay before. Now cels people would have paid an arm and a leg for three years ago are going for $25. Weird how the market works.

But my advice for anyone looking for American cels is to contact Van Eaton Galleries and Art Toons. Both are fantastic dealers who know and understand animation art.

Art Toons is a good source for anime art as well (and nice people to talk to at a convention) and I strongly encourage anyone at a con where they are to go through their stock closely, but their online presence has not been the best, and their prices are generally higher than eBay for similar cels (but you can find good deals in their stock).
Here's their con schedule
http://members.aol.com/arttoonsart/shows.html

Van Eaton is also a good seller in spite of the "Galleries" tag, with a good online presence (especially on eBay, where their prices are generally more competitive; items going from their gallery to ebay tend to end up selling for a fraction of the listed price on the gallery, which explains why they didn't sell earlier...).

As to E's comments: website design and price ARE important aspects in terms of judging a dealer (well, web design for a dealer who's primarily an inperson contact isn't important, but it is if the contact is primarily online). And I can't think of anything that might scare off anime collectors who might become non-anime animation collectors than prices five times what anime collectors would expect for a similar kind of cel in their normal field (when they should only be 2-3X as much, heh). The thread as an expression of openess to non anime animation art is good, but showing the worst (and most inefficient) aspects of American collecting might tend to reinforce views in anime-only collectors that non-anime cel collecting is fundamentally different, thus leading to less openness.

Not knowing what is the worst to show or the best to show didn't go into those posts/links obviously. Most of us didn't have a single cel of American Animation in our collections, I still don't, except for a few pieces that I was given.

I think it is hard to scare off anime collectors with anything. Indeed, since that time collectors of American animation have been coming here and setting up galleries. Before that time, it was only Japanese animation here except for a few obscure sites.
By the way, there have been several posts of people instructing us about American animation and prices since that time. I can't think of a better person than Roy (Backlotanimation) to use as an example.

But it is good to know that people like you are around and interested enough to guide the anime masses away from our naivete and apparently bad posts and into better shopping territory. So, that is a good thing.

Although, concerning website design I think has more to do with the functionality and ease of navigation of a site, than to do with selection of product. I tend to differ with you on that observation.

Case in point, I can remember ANIME TARO site as bad as they come, low-bandwidth, dull layout, ordering difficulty, but they had great anime cels, so I found a way to get those cels. If I had judged the dealer merely by his site design, I would have missed out on some rare gems.