Cels On eBay

It started with one listing by hkleiman (presumably Harry Kleiman, a dealer with a reputation) of a cel of Ariel and Eric about to kiss at the end of Kiss the Girl. It sold for US$5,448.89!

The auction gained a lot of attention and every week, hkleiman lists another cel (all with seals, by the way). Some of them are good, some of them are kind of ordinary. Some of them are selling between $1000-$1500, but a lot of them are selling for $800-$1000, which are pretty good prices!

Suddenly there was a flood of cels from other sellers onto the eBay marketplace, including from Leslie Combermale, who isn't fond of eBay for several reasons.  There were a couple of really nice ones from a seller who went as low as $1500 for each cel. Unfortunately the one I was most interested in didn't have a seal, even though it came with the COA and the Disney Archives envelope; those things can be changed between pieces which is why the seal is so important. Still, it made me wonder whether that piece could have simply missed the seal by accident, and is otherwise legitimately released from the studio.


Last week he put one up from a sequence which is on my Have-To-Have list. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, since I don't have a lot of money at the moment) Ariel's face was not quite how I wanted it to be. So I willingly let it pass, hoping to find a better shot. Here is the one that was offered:

One funny thing is that three cels very close to each other suddenly became available to buy: two from hkleima and one through ArtInsights (through a collector selling through the gallery). The best way to tell the difference between them is the curling of the end of Ariel's hair as she moves forward. They are as follows:

This cel was offered through ArtInsights:

This cel was sold on eBay by hkleiman for $889.55

This cel was sold on eBay by hkleiman for $1,470.00. Amazing the difference a few weeks can make in an auction result!

So, really close together and all available to buy within a month of each other. At first I thought they were all one and the same, but after looking at them closely, it was just a coincidence! They are all nice, but not on my have-to-have list.


The low prices of the cels going on eBay over the last two month makes me wish I had more money. I did buy one cel, which I will feature in my next post.