CCS on Mandarake BWA: Beware

[sensei]

This very nice item, an oversized image of Sakura in the Ep. 58 (Sakura and Double Trouble) Chinese battle costume, is already bid up past 20,000 yen:

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/auc_e/item ... 7720100002

But ... the auction description isn't accurate:

with a certificate /TS/with doga /total collectin of "kero corner"

Kero's Corner production cels have gone for very high prices: two of the top ten prices paid for CCS cels on auction were for pan cels of Sakura in battle costumes used in this episode-ending feature (the Ep. 24 "Alice" costume and the Ep. 8 "Pink Kitty" costume, both for over 300,000 yen).

The problem is that the "Kero's Corner" (Kero-chan no Omakase) was discontinued at Episode 34, so there was no such feature for the episode where she wore this costume. I'm up at my campus, with my Sakura Cards TV Animation Art Book 240 miles away, but I feel pretty confident that the pose is the same as in the color settei section of this volume. I'd guess that it was originally a color test, like many that have popped up for sale.

Perhaps it was used as a sort of hanken in the Art Book and so it deserves a bonus price. But, despite the certificate and the sequence number in the upper right corner, it's not a production cel. Bid accordingly.

[rallihir]

Just to chime in with my 2 cents... Sensei is correct with regards to the Kero Corner episodes. Both the Meilin and two Sakura cels that are up at Mandarake have cel numbers in the upper right corner. The couple Kero Corner cels that I have also have the cel numbers in the upper right corner in a rather heavy black marker. They are usually numbered A1, however, I have a couple also number B1 and C1 when they were not primary character images but images of other items shown in the Kero Corner episode. I have several CCS test cels all of which were featured in CCS artbooks. I believe that the test cels I have were all from the making of the CCS Movie 1 book. These test cels do not have any number. The dealer whom I acquired the cels from had several other CCS test cels all of which did not have cel numbers either.

I speculate that it is possible the cels up on Mandarake may have been intended to be for future Kero Corner episodes, but the entire sequence of Kero Corner's may have been cut short, so these cels never made it to production but may have been used in CCS artbooks. So, as Sensei has said, bid and buy according with some caveats.