Your first cel?

What was your first cel ever? What got you into cel collecting? I personally was doing some research on Sailor Moon items. And I stumbled upon some cels on ebay. Before that I had no idea that art from shows was up for sale. My first cel, by the way, is of Usagi making a funny face from SuperS season. It's still in my collection. What is your story?

My first cel was this one:

http://cutiebunny.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_info.asp?ItemID=119879

Originally, I collected Japanese Sailormoon cards, however, only two sets of Sailorstars cards were ever released. Most of the villians and the major scenes from the latter part of the series were never released on cards. This really bummed me out because Sailorstars was(and still is) my favorite season. When I saw this cel of Lead Crow on E-bay, I knew it'd be so awesome to own a character from which I had no artwork of. In fact, my first few purchases were of characters which were not heavily featured in any of the cards sets.

My first cel was a genga of Yuki from Fruits Basket. I was really big into the series in 2004-2005 and loved ebay for all it's little trinkets. Someone was selling this set
[color=#00ccff]
http://idlesiren.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_info.asp?ItemID=128752[/color]

and I thought it would be neat to have some nice sketches from the anime. Little did I know that would start me on a collecting spree that's still going on, haha!

My first cel was bought in 2005 when I first realized I must have a cel of my favorite character Saitou Hajime from Rurouni Kenshin http://hajimenokizu.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_info.asp?ItemID=239812 During the time I didn't know how much cels of Saitou cost and how they were hard to find, so I ended up placing bids that were too low thinking something cheap (and "nicer") will come along. That never happened but I'm still happy with my first cel even if it didn't propel me into seriously collecting. My third purchase a year after was when things started to get serious when I bought an OP cel of him http://hajimenokizu.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_info.asp?ItemID=241750. LOL... I've been a hopeless case since then.

My first ever cel was a Project A-ko movie cel where C-ko is glomping her. I got that in 1986 in Philadelphia and I thought how cool it was that I'm actually holding in my hands a piece of hand painted art from Japan that was from that movie I love so much. That set me off and I've been cel collecting classic anime ever since. You can see it right here: http://kahmcelworld.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_info.asp?ItemID=237709