Help I think I bought a fake cel

Foreword: I'm really sorry for the triple post. I didn't realise I should not use punctuation in the thread title. Can the mods please delete the other two impossible-to-view threads?

So ...

Hi. I'm Jules and I think I'm in a pickle. :-(

I just bought my first cel. It was an online purchase and arrived home well-packaged. I intended to give it as a gift this Christmas. However, I have reason to believe it is fake.

I have no experience collecting cels whatsoever. Before getting this one I had never even seen one, though I had a good idea what cels look like. Hence, on inspecting the item I fell back on my knowledge of animation production techniques in order to see if it looked genuine.

The cel in question is taken from a late-70s anime series called "Anne of Green Gables" which I am not personally familiar with, but the friend for whom the gift is intended grew up with it. The main character, Anne, is featured on the cel.

After unpacking it, I made the following troubling observations:

1. The colours are beautiful and vibrant, which I think is odd considering the cel is supposedly 37 years old. Shouldn't there be a bit of fading?

2. The line-art is not xeroxed! As I'm sure many of you know, xeroxing was introduced on Walt Disney's "101 Dalmatians", and intended to cut costs by photocopying the animator's pencil drawings in black ink directly onto cels. Thus, the need for hand-inking using pens was eliminated. many other studios followed suit. In fact, I was under the impression that all anime post-1970 was xeroxed, just like the Disney productions. I was stumped then to see that my cel was hand-inked. Why would a Japanese animation studio in 1979 choose a costlier method of creating cels, especially when considering that "Anne" was a television production and probably made on a rather strict budget? By all means, hand-inking is desirable, but if it doesn't make sense within the context of the time period in which the piece was supposedly made, then it just feels fishy. I suppose anyone can grab a fine felt-tip pen and trace a pencil drawing onto cellulose acetate!

3. Now comes the big one. Almost all the line-art on the cel I received has been inked on the reverse side of the cel, that being the same side on which the paint was applied. I am quite baffled. I have always read that in both American and Japanese animated films, the outlines (drawn by hand or xeroxed) are always applied to the front of the cel, which is then flipped over and painted on the reverse side. Nowhere have I ever encountered something like this is in my books or online. In some places there are some touch-ups to the black line-art on the front of the cel, which means that my cel has most of its line-art on the back, along with the paint, with a few touch-ups on the front. Interestingly, where the coloured paint was applied over the black outlines, said outlines have almost completely faded or are in the process of fading. This is very strange.

What do you guys think? Does this sound like a fake to you?

I have contacted the eBay seller who sold me the item and he insists it is genuine, and that it was purchased from Japan.

Here is the eBay listing for the item in question. The seller is Italian and is based in Rome: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282253893789?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I have taken better quality photos of the item, which I will try to link to if Photobucket will stop acting crazy and allow me to upload them.

Thanks for the help. :-) I'm anxious to know the truth as the item wasn't cheap and my insides are in a bit of a knot!

Here are some pics. I decided to create a flickr account as Photobucket has been acting up.

The cel combined with the supplied (non-original) background:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/2F65dV

The cel on its own:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/44861c

Close-up of Anne's face:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/935M34

The lower part:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/VQb593

The cel number. Is that "211" or "A11"? Hmm ...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/Kgd27A

The cel from the back. It seems to have been stuck to the animation paper:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/PVG461

Detail of back view:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/24102M

Anna's forehead. Note that the black outline that should form her bangs has faded into obscurity. The only visible part of the black outline has not been inked at the back of the cel like the rest, but is a touch-up applied to the front. As it has not made contact with the paint it has not faded:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/a33272

Here, the highlight on the side of Anne's nose has been inked on the front side of the cel (as it should) in a very light colour. The white reflections on Anne's irises have also been applied to the front face of the cel. These are practically the only things, along with some sparse black outline touch-ups, that have been applied to the front of the cel:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/20HU29

Note the quality of the line-art. It is clearly not xeroxed and inked by hand using either a pen nib or what actually looks like a very fine felt-tip pen:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150409677@N06/shares/Un5LPA

Hope that helps!

It looks pretty good to me, although not a series I collect. I do have a few pieces that have paint on the front of the cel due to painters errors that are then adjusted.

The number is most likely A11, the numbering looks like some of the numbers I see that come from Studio Madhouse but other Studios do their numbering kind of messy like that all the time. I once got a piece where the A9 cel looked like AP because the 9 had been turned around.

Some lines are still hand inked for corrections and the line, and most of the lines on that cel have been xeroxed from the looks of it. you can see the fading in the warmer colors of her around her bangs and eyes. You can also see the few hand inked lines around her eyes, prolly to cover up some sort of flaw.

I'm not familiar with the series, but usually you don't run into a lot of fakes out of lesser known series. Fakes you will see out of the uber expensive series like DBZ, SM, and Evangelion. I think that you are okay.

In my opinion, the cel looks authentic. Not every animated work since the inception of xerox has used the technology in every aspect of the process. Many animators retained the process of inking the lines by hand in some instances. Also, the bright colors are not necessarily an issue. A well-preserved cel will keep its color and look great for decades.

I can also attest to the practice of animators painting on the front of the cel for corrective purposes. Several pieces in my collection show this same technique. It's unlikely that a forger would apply strange corrections/techniques to a fake cel. Remember that forgers want their product to look as perfect as possible. Much of the time they are overly perfect.

It's a lovely piece, but it's also true that lesser known series are not usually faked (like Jadeduo said), simply because there isn't a lot of money to be made.

Thank you Kino and Jadeduo for your prompt replies. :-) I'm feeling a little better now.

Have you two ever come across Japanese cels that have been inked and painted on the same side, as in my case? That's the one that caused me the most worry.