I’ve been following the cel market for awhile now, but still can’t completely make full sense of it.
Recently at the sothebys auctions there were pokemon cels that went for tens of thousands of usd, yet we see some pretty nice cels too on ebay for a couple of hundred or low thousands.
Anyone has any experience? I would like to build a cel collection as its quite nostalgic for me - not really looking for returns but would like to make sure i know how to purchase so that it at least maintains most of its value.
After years of waiting around for one that was both aesthetically pleasing to me as well as inexpensive, I bought this one in 2017 for $150. Came with the painted cel and the original sketch, but no background.
There aren’t a lot of these cels out there, that’s for sure. I remember when there used to be only like 5 on eBay at a time. Now there’s around 20-30, and most of them have been up there for a long time because they’re priced really high and the market isn’t developed well enough yet that people are willing to splurge that much money on them. Not really an established market, lacking in liquidity, not very many sales.
I have no idea if these things can truly be certified/authenticated like trading cards. That’s one thing stopping me from buying more. The other factor stopping me from buying more is that I have no money and can’t afford to spend hundreds of dollars on these things haha. The original anime was my favorite TV show growing up and still is to this day. It is awesome to own a genuine piece of Pokemon anime history. Like, this exact cel was used to make an episode of Pokemon! I’d love to purchase more once I can actually afford them.
I have no idea what their future value will hold. I’m hoping they’ll stagnate for a few more years until I’m making some big money and can afford them but I know that of course that probably won’t happen. Given the popularity of the original Pokemon anime, I would think that the sky’s the limit. But then again, it seems like these cels still haven’t hit anywhere close to “mainstream” popularity like the cards have.
If anyone can help us learn some more about the Pokemon Cel market/any other info, we’d be greatly appreciative!
I am not sure about pokemon cell art but I have seen quite a few dragon ball z cels show up recently from some sellers and they are very interesting. I have come close to buying them a few times. When I looked at ebay one time for cels in general I saw the market for disney cels and other older animation seems very developed in their niche markets. I think all it would take is someone to bring it to more awareness in a very popular video for it to explode similar to vintage cards. The one big caveat is it would be difficult to evaluate their worth and it is unknown how many copies or similar cels are out there.
There is a popular video on youtube called The Importance of Animation Cel Collecting that those here would find interesting.
My takeaway is that the cels are difficult to preserve properly but otherwise pretty attractive as collectibles. It does seem like a combined authentication and preservation (slabbing) service would be good for the market.
