That was my old business. I use to frame wholesale for Warner Bros. stores, Disney, Marvel, Hanna Barbera and many of the artist like Chuck Jones & Friz Freleng. I was in the heart of Burbank back in the nineties. Tons of studio stuff also for props and movies.
I have tons of that stuff.
PM if you are looking for something.

That's pretty awesome! I would imagine you have some great stories!

I've dabbled in cels, but I've learned I like too many artists/shows and there just isn't enough wall space. Been collecting Walt Disney autographs & will start looking into Disney & Hanna Barbera production cels at some point, just need to find a reputable dealer.

I also collect Disney production cels and production drawings.

Got two Simpson production cells, one from the first House of Horrors episode and one from Lisa gets a pony.
Got a Rocky and Bullwinkle limited cell.
And one warner brothers sericell.

Stopped collecting as they got very expensive and they didn't seem to hold value.

We have a decent collection that I started when I was still in college, ranging from the 90’s era “collectible” setups to stuff that we got through work connections that’s all legitimate but isn’t “certified” since it was handed to us as thank yous or salvaged from the trash at studios. I’m actually interested in getting rid of a few pieces because I have too much, but since the market slowed down so much, the dealers (who still sell for the same prices) won’t even give me half of what they’re worth/currently sell for. So if anyone wants to set up a trade of a pin for some artwork, I’m more than willing!

I’ll post some of the interesting stuff separately.

I have a couple original Speed Racer cels that I love.

If you have any cool marvel or disney animation stuff I'd love to buy one or two if the price is right.

Almost all of the good stuff is gone; Destroyed or in the hands of collectors who have no intention of selling. (Kind of like Williams/Bally pinball machines.) Limited editions are a suckers bet as far as "investment" goes. But if you like it and have the bucks, go for it. I have about 30 cells, mostly signed WB production cells. Haven't found anything worth buying for years.

I have a Disney Production cel from 101 Dalmatians that I’d be willing to trade for a working pin or sell outright. I’ve tried to speak to dealers over the past few years and they want to lowball me way more than the market slowdown justifies.C044BE98-A539-46E9-86B1-C86685CA66EF (resized).jpeg

I also have a Chuck Jones collectible cel from the early 90’s. The laminate on the frame is pulling off, so it needs to be reframed, but the cel is pristine. Somewhere I also have a signed postcard of what the background was initially going to be, but that says “To Nancy” so unless you’re also named Nancy that’s probably not of much interest.
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In the early 90’s I also worked for a company that had ended up with some boxes of artwork from the old Fleischer animation studio in NYC. (Popeye, Betty Boop). Of course by the time I started, all the good stuff was long gone, but my boss let me pull a few of the cooler backgrounds from some of the “Sing Along” movies. The artwork on most of these would be at the bottom of the screen and they’d put the lyrics across the top with a bouncing ball.6FF6567B-6798-4109-9AEB-7920006CD5BD (resized).jpegF2250809-2025-4ACC-9F32-78821967BF26 (resized).jpeg67A310DB-7011-4A64-93B3-08C3148B4AA9 (resized).jpeg

From 1990-2001 I worked in animation, and was often gifted artwork from other animators. Some of these are from well known illustrators, others are just beautiful work from independent animators.

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My husband, who is still a professional animator, worked for a while at the company that did all the effects for this little Disney film called Tron. One day he called me up, knowing that I was a huge fan of the film and asked me “Hey, they are tossing all the original storyboards from the movie. Do you want anything in particular?” Uh LIGHT CYCLE CHASE!!!13FB7870-FA31-40AE-BE80-9F0D0513F8AD (resized).jpeg

Whoa that's super cool.

Speaking of my husband, he’s been crafting an amazing hand-drawn film for over 30 years now. I just have to brag about him for a moment bc he’s a WAAAAAY more talented draftsman than I’ll ever be. (I’m better at movement and timing so we’re a good pair lollll)

Here’s a cel setup he made me for my 30th birthday showing me and our two cats as Miyazaki charactersB9F09895-B0F8-4270-B42F-3846B09A6394 (resized).jpeg

And here are a couple images from his film that he’s still working on:
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More about his film here: http://www.dearannaolson.com/gallery.html

One of the biggest problems is that starting around Beauty and the Beast, traditional cel painting quickly was abandoned in favor of digital options. I was one of the last 2-3 who worked full time as a cel painter in NYC, and I was no longer getting that type of work by around 1995 or so. So anything for sale more recent than that is pretty much all “collectible” setups vs actual production art.

I'll have to check that out. I don't care about their value, I just think they are neat, so randoms are fine by me.

And it’s not just that it was hand drawn. There was a 90’s era show that was fairly popular, and the painting (and camera work) was all done overseas. Over 50% of the artwork tends to be useless for collectors to begin with—think a hand or eye blink alone on a separate level. The camera operators weren’t paid much, so while they were super careful of the artwork before filming, afterwards they tended to just shove it all back in boxes quickly, and a lot of the desirable artwork got damaged in shipping. My friend had a job pulling the artwork for a gallery to certify, and they said that there wasn’t all that much that was able to be salvaged.

Didn't work out for Bart Simpson

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Sort of related, I’ll take this chance to show off my Matt Groening autograph with drawing of Bongo from Life In Hell. A chance meeting in Santa Monica CA in 1991 when I was 14. The simpsons were new and just got wildly popular but I was a bigger fan of his comic Life in Hell. He asked my fav character and and said Bongo and voila that is what he drew. Sorry for bad pic with glare.

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How are these usually bought? It sounds like a neat thing to collect.

I've seen them at art auctions, but have been browsing the site luckydogg mentioned: https://animationlegends.com/

They have some some random cel packs that I think are interesting. They list a lot of shows coming too.

There are three types of animation cels. Production, Limited Ed. & Sericels. Production are the cels that were made for the actual cartoons. They were story boarded then hand drawn on paper. The paper drawings were then made later on by printer to create a black line. These were then sent to Korea, China etc to be hand painted. In a normal cartoon there may be 60,000 to 80,000 cels. Most are just eyes, hands etc and stacked to create an image. Of all of these less than 1000 are what you would consider contactable. The pencils were usually destroyed until the end when they figured out people would buy them.
Now all the cartoons are made by computer so no more cels.

The collectible part of production cels is the background. There were maybe 50 made all hand painted and reused for the entire cartoon and sometimes multiple cartoons. When Warner Bros. started selling the cells they would take photos of the backgrounds and use those with the cells. Then get thousands for the backgrounds, when there was a market. The Batgirl cel is what looks like 4 separate production cels taped onto a photo background. These sold for abut $600.

Next are the limited editions. These were usually hand painted and numbered in a series of 500 to 2500 and signed by the creator or producer. Some go for lots of money. Like The Grinch below. I think that one sold for about $2600. These sold usually more than the production cells unless they were original Disney classics.

Last are the seicels like Michigan J Frog below although he is signed, Tweety is not. These are machine (copier) produced, sometimes numbered go give perceived value. Made by the thousands but relatively cheap.
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I love sugared cereal and video games, so I keep an eye out for animation cels that fit either of those themes. Sometimes I get lucky and find one that fits both.

I also have a Tony the Tiger from Frosted Flakes and a Donkey Kong Cereal cel with Mario and DK which both need framing. I need to dig them up and take pictures.

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Heh, this is one of the cels I’m thinking of getting rid of—it’s from a 1992 commercial that I worked on. The cel is production, background is just a color copy.54090491-1044-439B-AA65-BCDDE07CA677 (resized).jpeg

I’ve got this He-Man MOTU animation cell on my wall in my Game Room.

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These are so cool. I want to get into this but have so much crap in storage and on the walls already!

It's really awesome to see old animation from the studio's perspective! If you have all the complete cells you can scan them in digital 4K and make things like this possible:

Similarly, even after the material has been printed to film it's still possible to scan the film and recover stunning images...

I had ALL the Nintendo Power, EGM, and GamePro mags back in the day. They were all pitched when my folks moved.

What happened to all of the original Disney cells? The old shorts and the original films? Are they in collector's hands, or does Disney still own them?

I've got one from Star trek: the Animated series... It was actually a cel that was used in exactly one specific frame, so it was easy to narrow down the exact moment when it was used. Fortunately, the cel depicted the character mid-collapse from a phaser stun, so a few frames later the background was shown without any cel atop it, and so I was able to frame-grab the background and reproduce it to frame the cel.

Way Cool! Would love to get some Speed Racer stuff some day. Most have Disney Pooh etc as my wife and kids were into it Many years ago but Speed! Just wow.

They are long gone. The acetate shrinks and the paint falls off. I've seen some that have have been sandwiched between new acetate to preserve them. Plus they use to throw them away.

That Cruella, or one that looks just like it, sold for $1250 on Ebay recently.

ebay.com link: 1961 WALT DISNEY 101 DALMATIANS CRUELLA DE VIL ORIGINAL PRODUCTION ANIMATION CEL

It’s from the same sequence but the mouth position is more likely an “L” while mine is more likely an “ah”. There’s also probably some minute shifts in positioning that you only can see if you flip between the two.

I’m a little surprised the seller isn’t addressing the background, which almost certainly a color xerox if they aren’t calling it out (as well as based on the price). Also, the cracking on mine is quite common for artwork from this time frame due to the effects of age on the materials, so the lack of any cracking on this cel would make me check it out carefully before purchasing. It may have been restored, or it could be one of the other categories of collectible art and the seller just doesn’t fully understand what the differences are. (The colors are “brighter” than mine as well)

I’ve had my cel since around 1998 or so. I paid way more for it then, but the EBay price is about what I’d expect for it now, based on the current market. Certainly wasn’t as good an investment as it would have been if I bought the TZ I was also eyeing at the time!

Yah I know little to nothing about value or being able to tell real from fake or whatever. I've seen animation cels and other similar sketches on some episodes of Pawn Stars. Seems they generally offer $500 or so for that kind of stuff if it's old enough and from popular films. Maybe up around $1000 if they are framed with the artists signatures.

Even having been immersed in the field for a good chunk of time, there isn’t exactly consensus. Just looking at the actual production art, is it more valuable to have a piece like mine with clearly the original paint though it’s cracking? Or is it more valuable to restore it (ie repaint it) and put it over a xeroxed color background? I have my own opinions, but I’ve seen collectors fall on both sides of the fence. (Obviously uncracked original paired with original background is still the gold standard).

I started collecting bc I saw the values rising and the amount of stock dwindling, but then the market got flooded with a lot of cheaper options. So now, I’d just say go for the characters or films/shows you like and just do a bit of googling before you buy to see if what you’re buying is priced fairly.

Yea the cel market went crazy in the 90s and then the market got flooded as people starting pulling them out of every nook and cranny. People tend to forget that 30 of these are made for every second of the film - that's 160k+ per film. Even with a high trash rate, that's still a few thousand probably circulating per film. Back before the market went crazy Disney would sell them for pennies at their parks before they realized they could squeeze more money.

The market might recover - it might not. Still cool stuff though!

When I rearranged the room, I lost a ton of wall space to the side row of pins, so there's not as many hanging as I would like. I collect video/arcade game animation cells, many from Saturday Supercade. Mr T and Mr DNA (original from the first Jurassic Park) are the exceptions. The lion pinball machine pair are from an episode of Tom & Jerry

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That’s awesome! I love the Mr DNA cel!!

Those are all online so at least you can go back and revisit them. Emuparadise has them.