Heritage Auction

Rare Early Disney Animation Cel Up For Auction

Filed under: Auctions

Animation cels have become popular collectibles, combining art with a heavy dose of nostalgia. Cels are transparent sheets which the images are drawn and painted and they were used for early traditional animation. They are available at a wide range of price points from around a hundred dollars to many thousands depending on the complexity of the image and the significance of the final work that it is part of. Disney cels are often among the most prized with the flagship mouse, Mickey, being particularly important. Disney discontinued the use of cels in favor of computer animation several decades ago.

Heritage Auctions is selling off a Mickey Mouse animation cel, that they term the world's most valuable. The Band Concert Production Cel Animation Art, Walt Disney, 1935 – will be part of Heritage Auctions Feb. 24-25 Signature Comics and Comic Art Auction. The Band Concert is a funny, short cartoon, showing Mickey's orchestra of colorful characters playing, no matter what is happening around them. It is estimated to sell for $100,000 and is thought to be the only production setup in existence from the first Mickey cartoon that features Mickey and the entire band. The image area measures approximately 12" x 9.5", matted and framed to an overall size of 26.75" x 22.75" and has been professionally restored. The cel comes to Heritage via the Kerby Confer Collection. Confer is known to be one of the most serious collectors of original Disney material. Confer bought the cel in 2001. The cel appears on a list of most expensive animation cels which says that it sold for over $400,000 back in 1999.

"This cel is, in many ways, the ultimate Mickey Mouse item a collector could ever hope to acquire," said Barry Sandoval, Director of Operations of the Comics category at Heritage. "The Band Concert was the very first theatrical Mickey Mouse cartoon in color, and has long been cherished by Disney fans worldwide."

Tags: animation cel, animation cels, disney, heritage auction, heritage auctions, mickey mouse

Original Little House On The Prairie Art Up For Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art, Children, Books

Many of us grew up with the much beloved Little House on the Prairie book by Laura Ingalls WIlder. The cover art used starting in the 1950s and continuing up to present day, a soft-pencil drawing of the Ingalls family in a covered wagon by illustrator Garth Williams will be part of Heritage Auctions' February 11 Signature® Illustration Art Auction in Beverly Hills. This piece is expected to bring in over $8,000 and joins 99 other Little House drawings, spread across 30 lots, in the auction.

Williams' scenes of the close-knit frontier family replaced the extremely stylized versions by Helen Sewell that had been used since the 1930s. "So many of us saw America's heartland through the eyes of Garth Williams, through these exact drawings," said Barry Sandoval, Director of Operations of Comics & Comic Art at Heritage, "and the cover is the most famous of them all. With his wonderful soft-pencil art, Williams conveyed the majesty of the prairie, but also the warmth of a family that had to stick together through all of its hardships." Sandoval goes on to say that Williams went on a six-month trip to research his drawings, meeting with Wilder in Mansfield, Missouri and also visiting other states where the Wilder family lived.

Tags: Heritage Auction, Heritage Auction Galleries, heritage auctions, laura ingalls wilder, Little House books, Little House on the Pr, little house on the prairie

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Painting Found In An Attic Could Sell For Over $100,000

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

I love a good "lost in the attic" story and there is one going up for sale through Heritage Auctions on November 20. The 1901 painting by H.A. McArdle depicting the Texas Revolution's decisive 1836 Battle of San Jacinto had been missing for nearly a century. It was found covered with dust in the attic of a West Virginia home and could sell for $100,000 or more.

"It depicts the 1836 battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. It was painted in 1901 by H.A. McArdle (1836 - 1908), five years after he painted a large mural of that scene that still hangs in the State Senate chamber of the Texas Capitol building," said Atlee Phillips of Heritage. According to a family story, McArdle was never paid by the person who commissioned the smaller painting and so the painting was brought to West Virginia when the family moved there in 1901. His descendants recently discovered it in the attic of the family's home in Weston, West Virginia. The five-by-seven feet oil painting was dusty but generally in good condition. McArdle's descendants had no idea they had something of so much value in their home. "I vaguely remember seeing the painting but never in the light of day in all the years I lived in that house," said Lynn Bland Buell, McArdle's great-granddaughter.

"This is a stunning find of a work by one of the most important painters of scenes and individuals from Texas history," said Sam Ratliffe, Head of the Bywaters Special Collections at Southern Methodist University's Hamon Arts Library.

Tags: h. a. mcardle, heritage auction

Terminator Arm Prop Heads To Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

The only known surviving piece from one of the original 1984 Terminator movie robots, a prop metal arm retrieved by a crew member from the debris of an explosion in the film's climax scene is headed for auction this summer. The two-foot-long prop "T-800 Terminator" metal arm (the robot played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) will be offered in a Beverly Hills, California auction by Heritage Auction Galleries on July 17, 2010.

"It's from the private collection of Shay Austin of Los Angeles who was an assistant art director on the movie, and she's kept it for over a quarter-century. No one was saving props for their future value as memorabilia in those days, and that's why original items from this classic film are so hard to find," said Doug Norwine of Heritage Auction Galleries. He estimates it will sell for $15,000 or more.

There were two full-size Terminator robots made for the movie, one for close-ups and one to be blown up in the movie. "After the explosion I ran up with the special effects crew to see what was left," Austin recalled. "We started picking up the pieces and I picked up the arm. In the year we shot, no one was thinking about keeping this stuff, but I tossed the arm into a box with some other leftover props, and then into my storage."

The plot of the second Terminator movie hinged on the technology left behind by a single arm and CPU from the previous Terminator causing Norwine to joke: "Who knows, the entire fate of humankind could rest on the right bidder buying this piece and keeping it safe from those who would use it for nefarious ends."

Tags: arnold schwarzenegger, Heritage Auction, heritage auctions, memorabilia, movie, movie props, terminator

Rare Civil War Photograph Up For Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions

The original photograph of Confederate Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel John Pelham of Alexandria, Alabama, a Civil War hero, is up for sale at Heritage Auctions. What makes this historic photograph particularly interesting is that it was an image that has been reproduced many times but no one was aware that that the original photograph still existed. It was tucked away for years passed down through the generations in the Mississippi family of Pelham's sister, Betty. The original photograph was made by acclaimed Civil War era photographer, Mathew Brady. It is estimated to fetch between $65,000 and $85,000 when it sells in a public auction of Civil War artifacts on June 26, 2010.

"It's a half-plate Ambrotype photo taken around 1858, about the same time Pelham began studying at West Point. He was a brilliant, brave officer known as 'The Gallant Pelham' during the Civil War," explained Dennis Lowe, director of Arms, Militaria and Civil War Auctions at Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas, Texas, the firm that will conduct the auction in Dallas and online. Pelham withdrew from West Point in 1861 to serve in the Confederate Army and fought at First Bull Run, Antietam and Kelly's Ford where he was killed while leading a cavalry charge on March 17, 1863. Pelham was buried in City Cemetery in Jacksonville, Alabama, where a statue was erected in his honor in 1905. The states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama all have towns named in his honor. The family hopes that the photograph will go "to a collector or institution with the means and facility to take care of the historic image," said Lowe.

Pelham's descendants have also consigned a handwritten, signed letter dated September 25, 1858 that Pelham sent to his family in Alabama about beginning his studies at West Point. The letter is expected to sell for $25,000 or more.

Tags: civil war, Civil War History, civil war relics, confederate army, Heritage Auction, heritage auctions, matthew brady

Red Cross Plans Fund-Raising Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Charity

Everybody is selling their treasures to make money these days, even the American Red Cross. The NY Times reports that the Red Cross is selling more than 150 items including a Cartier clock lamp, original Christmas Seals and other archival materials. The organization has had to let go of employees and take other cost cutting measures one of which is closing its Lorton, Virginia warehouse and outsourcing storage and archival operations. The organization is going to make more money through the closing of the warehouse (around $3 million) than the auction (around $200,000). The sales will done with Heritage Auctions online through February. Other pieces of memorabilia from the warehouse, including paintings by Norman Rockwell will stay with the Red Cross while uniforms, flags and some other memorabilia will be sent to the National Archives.

Source

Tags: auction, charity, heritage auction, HeritageAuction, red cross, RedCross