I've focused on the more expensive cels since I started collecting. The first few cels that I purchased were on the high-end. At the time, I was still interested in completing the missing few promo cards in my Sailormoon card collection, and reasoned that by buying these high end cels, that I'd only need a few of them and could dedicate the rest of my resources to buying cards.
But, oh, how times change. And they probably will change again.
I have no problem with paying money for a cel that just takes my breath away. But I've reached the point that I won't buy just any quality or emotional shot, it has to be an incredibly detailed shot and generally with a matching production background. Because of this, the amount of cels that I've purchased in the last six months or so is very small, and some of these cels are from animes I don't actively collect.
graymouser wrote:..so much depends on the show itself. There are some shows where you can get very high quality cels for less than $50. There are other shows that you can't even get a nice cel (let alone a high quality one) for less than $1000. The collector from the less expensive show is going to be able to collect a large quantity of high quality cels very quickly. The collector of the expensive show may never attain high quality nor high quantity cels.
I agree with the first part of this statement. Shows that have a widespread following, especially outside of Japan, tend to go for more than those that do. However, regardless of the anime, there tends to be a loyal group that will only buy the primo cels and will pay top dollar and because of that, the quality of the supply will be greatly diminished, even if the prices aren't.
