Vintage Guru Reveals Her Glamour Secrets
The Killer Mobile Device for Victorian Women
Gloriously Grotesque 19th-Century Pipes
The Beautiful Chaos of Improvisational Quilts
Our Dad, the Water Witch of Wyoming
This 1959 Goggomobil Is Insanely Cute and Gets 55 MPG. Why Can’t Detroit Do That?
California Cool: How the Wetsuit Became the Surfer's Second Skin
The Unfiltered History of Rolling Papers, Plus Tommy Chong's Big Fat Jamaican Vacation
World's Smallest Museum Finds the Wonder in Everyday Objects
Fightin’ Femmes: Unmasking Female Superheroes with Author Mike Madrid
Posted 2 years ago
distantven…
(2 items)
I bought this piece at an auction last night. It was described as a Genuine Tom and Jerry animation cel. I gambled a bit on this one, because I didn't do any research on this prior to the auction, and I honestly have never heard of an animation cel prior to this auction! This had a $125 reserve on it, and the owner of this item was sitting beside me, so I was able to pick her brain for a little bit of info. She said that she bought it a few years ago in an art gallery in Boca Raton for around $500. She said that it is the real thing, and I can say that every item she had up in this auction was high-dollar, quality stuff, and as far as I could tell, it was all legitimate stuff. I jumped online really fast right before it went up for bidding, and these things were all across the board-genuine Tom & Jerry animation cels were selling for as much as $9,800! The owner also said that she has the paperwork for this somewhere in her house, and that she would try to dig it up for me. I would appreciate any information on this item that you can offer, without me having the paperwork (in case she cannot locate it). An approximate value, age! Thanks! PS - I bought one more item last night that the same lady owned, and I am putting that in here for your expertise on as well. It is a huge, signed, numbered Alice Cooper framed Lithograph.
Animation CelsAnimated films first became popular in the 1930s and have since spawned an …
Cool cel. It's hard to tell from the pics if it is an original production cel or a publicity piece. Have you opened it up to see if there are punch holes or numbers on the cel?
I very much doubt that you have a genuine animation cel that was actually "under the camera". I think it's what's called a "sericel", a mass produced limited edition using a silkscreen process, and the $125 reserve is a bit high for top dollar. My reasoning: the poses are too perfect, not part of cartoon action. The characters are complete - unless there is another layer, it's most likely parts would be missing (Tom's eyebrows, or Jerry's tail, for example) as a function of animated movement.
For more information, type "sericel" into your favorite search engine. There's an excellent overview written by "wantn" for eBay.
Never say never, though. There's a very slim chance that posed scene was part of a title card, but I highly doubt it. As KULT pointed out, you'll have to unseal the back, open it. If it has no holes, it's a common sericel, not totally worthless but simply not the same as a frame from a classic cartoon.