American animation cels

First off I have to say that I frequent both Ron and Ted's galleries and love both of them (the galleries...not Ron and Ted-although they're good people). I just picked up several good BTAS (new adventures) Cels at Art Expo and they will be posted on my gallery soon. I agree with you Ron about "purchase what you like. " Do that, and you will always be happy with your collection. I disagree, however, about the investment potential. It still seems to be catching on that Cels are becoming a thing of the past. The Technologies now exists that instead of WB/Clampet doing a One of One Cel of your favorite production drawing, you might be able to get your "dream cel" made as a 1/1 print that looks like a cel and the price will be approx. the same as an OPC is now. Keep your eyes open...it will probably happen and this will just make the GOOD opc's all the more desirable. The dollar amount that Batman/Superman cels have gone for on Ebay are not always that impressive but sometimes...niether are the cels. How many times have you seen a Cel from either of these series that made you Gasp and blirt out "OH MY GOD! I MUST HAVE THIS CEL!" Probably not that often because most of the OhMyGod Cels remain in the hands of the collector or in the WB archives. Ebay is sometimes a good way of rounding out a collection and paying less for Cels you "kind of want" (most of the time). I know I kept debating with myself to purchase or not to purchase an Etrigan Cel that Ron has posted on Ebay a number of times...just to have the the character in my collection. Anyway...with the popular longevity of BATMAN as a pop icon and the BTAS to wich all new animated forms of Batman will be compared...I believe that as a long term investment these Cels will not only hold but increase there value in time. Especially "A" list Cels and Themed Collections (as a whole). As for Gallery pricing...these people need to make a living and they have a large overhead to think of (gallery rent, etc., etc.) You also get the service of someone that may be able to hunt down cels you want or that knows your interests and brings a certain Cel to your attention. In my opinion you are also paying for their service and expertise. I would rather see these Galleries open and available to the the collecting community rather than closed for good. Look at how we all miss the WB galleries. Later...
~Mark

Do all you American animation collectors write such long introspective threads? You guys must have been holding back for a while,eh?

=)j/k

[quote] How many times have you seen a Cel from either of these series that made you Gasp and blirt out "OH MY GOD! I MUST HAVE THIS CEL!" Probably not that often because most of the OhMyGod Cels remain in the hands of the collector or in the WB archives. Ebay is sometimes a good way of rounding out a collection and paying less for Cels you "kind of want" (most of the time) [/quote]


I completely agree with this. I don't collect BTAS, but even with the cels I collect, I rarely find cels eBay that are truly "A" list cels. Sometimes, but not often. Usually it's just very average cels or the cels that dealers had for years before someone finally bought it. Not that I don't buy those cels, but in the back of my mind I know that the really good cels are locked away somewhere.

When there are good cels on eBay the prices usually go through the roof. Good example are He-man cels. Stupid crappy cels go for $20. But a great cel from a significant scene even without a background can go for ten times that or more, it all depends.

I'm all for buying at galleries, even if the prices might be a bit high, especially for cels released from studios, but atleast you know you're getting an authentic cel, and the cel is being sold by someone who knows animation art. eBay is a bit of a crapshot sometimes, especially when dealing with dealers who don't know animation art and don't list if cels needs significant restoration or has been trimmed, bent, etc.

Also when buying cels from the well known series and the higher end WB or Disney cels on eBay, people have to be wary of fakes. Anime cels get faked all the time, people could easily be selling fake American cels as well. I'm pretty good at authenticating cels from the shows I collect, but I don't assume that every cel listed as production art on eBay is authentic. When I see cels from BTAS or Simpsons on eBay selling for 1/2 of what a gallery charges, I get really suspicious. That's why I only trust galleries for those types of cels.

Kett

[quote]The dollar amount that Batman/Superman cels have gone for on Ebay are not always that impressive but sometimes...niether are the cels. How many times have you seen a Cel from either of these series that made you Gasp and blirt out "OH MY GOD! I MUST HAVE THIS CEL!" Probably not that often because most of the OhMyGod Cels remain in the hands of the collector or in the WB archives.[/quote]

I saw one of those cels a couple years ago on ebay. Actually it was a background. From BTAS. It was Arkham Asylum. Absolutely beautiful piece. I think it had a $2000 reserve or minimum bid. The listing was pulled from ebay before the auction ended.

E: When you have to spend hundreds of dollars to get any cels from certain shows, you need to give the purchase a good think. Thus, the potential for lengthy responses...

Mark: Hey, I think your Joker's Millions cel and mine are from the same shot...

Kett: While it is of course possible for there to be fake material out there, it's foolish to assume that lower prices in an open market compared to the monopsimistic version of the market implies counterfeiting. Galleries jack prices up (and studio suppliers do the same in their place in the chain). Their are clearly leaks in their system tho, some of which are probably informal ("hey boss, can I take these drawings?") tho some may be official leaks to larger non-brick and mortar gallery dealers (this is implied by various dealers stocks, as opposed to any hard info I have). The presumable veracity of the non-official channels Simpsons art that is out there is that alot of what is sold pre-dates the airing of the episodes it is from (I've bought SImpsons drawings on two occasions where this has been the case, and I don't have much Simpsons stuff). Now, that could be faking by the people at the show itself, but that hardly seems worth it when they're swimming in the material anyways. In the case of WB studio store materials, the open market only buys at a rate far below that which galleries sell at; galleries put their opening bids or reserves at near gallery prices, but their cels rarely sell. If someone wants to sell, it won't go for what they bought it for from a studio store (usually). Non-WB sources of WB material seem to come from overseas; much of the material involves correction layers with Korean written on them; that mihgt have been shipped back to the WB in the US, but it doesn't seem that likely. The material also seems to come in shots, and is not necessarily the most marketable material. That could be a sophisticated con, but the cost of running that con doesn't seem cost effective compared to sourcing real material.

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure someone was selling fake model cels from the DC animated shows a few years ago. If their level of counterfeiting is the extent of the skills of would be counterfeiters, then they're easily detectable. All kinds of wrong colors and such (in model cels that would be used for making sure things like colors were correct) , flooding the market when they were doing it, and still keeping their prices abnormally high (opening bids uniformly at $40 or $50 I think for everything, regardless of character) even when their sales dropped off. Since all you would need would be color call xeroxes (a stack of them, based on the material being offered), cel paint and someone to paint them in order to start copying off into limitless cels, that would be the easiest thing to counterfeit.