Death of a Cel

Killua · Post by **Killua** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 9:37 am

I'd heard of it happening. It hadn't happened to me yet so I hoped I'd skate through my cel-life without it ever rearing its ugly malformed head, but it has. A cel I won and batedly waited for has been lost forever.

At first in my grief I believed the seller of malfeasance and wanted the deputy to skewer him at least with negative feedback. But my deputy then told me what the seller told them, that a part-timer at Kuroneko thought it was just two pieces of cardboard and threw it away, and I believed him, though not without some resentment that I suppose is inevitable in such a situation.

In any case, the world has been deprived of you, sweet one. Rest in peace.

I barely knew ye.

I know many other collectors have lost cels in transmit, water damage, or other horrible ways. Which cels that you've lost have hurt the most?

Sky Rat · Post by **Sky Rat** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 9:58 am

I didnâ€™t save a screenshot of it because I naively assumed Iâ€™d get it no problem and the auction listing expired before I realized otherwiseâ€¦but Iâ€™ve lost in transit a cel of Asuka from Weiss Kreuz. Which was particularly painful for me because sheâ€™s a character from a flashback so very few cels of her exist, and that particular flashback is one of the scenes from the show Iâ€™m most interested in collecting. Argle!

I ended up overcompensating for the loss by buying a nicer and more expensive cel from the same scene two years later, which Iâ€™m ultimately happier withâ€¦.but the lost one still hurts me quite a bit. Sob.

pixie_princess · Post by **pixie_princess** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:30 am

I thought everything was fine, until I noticed that the cel never made it to the deputy. The seller said it was shipped but must have been lost in transit or something. Deputy had no record of it coming in... For a while I had hoped that maybe it was packaged into a huge package of winnings and accidently sent to the wrong person. Alas(as it has been a couple years) it is not the case.

Its probably even worse hearing that it was thrown out in the trash though

Seriously, how could the guy have thought it was trash?

graymouser · Post by **graymouser** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:44 am

I am sorry to hear about the loss of that cel. I have had only one cel disappear. I noticed that quite some time had passed, and the cel was never marked as arrived at my deputy. When I inquired they checked with the seller, but the seller could not find it anywhere. Fortunately, it was an impulse buy and so I was not too disappointed. I don't know what I would do if it was one that I was especially excited about.

zerospace · Post by **zerospace** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:46 am

Wow. I suppose I should feel really privileged that this has never happened to me in my nearly 10 years of collecting. It really makes me sad to hear the stories thus far.

(And Killua.. that is one very very pretty HxH cel! I feel like crying for you!)

Baylor · Post by **Baylor** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:53 am

Wow, I too feel incredibly lucky that I have never had a cel lost. I received someone else's cel by accident once, but fortunately I knew the intended recipient so she got it from me with no problems and the deputy apologized profusely for the mix up.

Post by **sensei** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 12:22 pm

Kuroneko ... "black cat" ... certainly was bad luck in this case. I'm very sorry for the loss, killua. The only things that have happened to me were cases when the YJ seller never delivered items that I won. As this particular seller works on consignment, I always assumed that the person actually putting the item up FA hoped to get more than the opening price and simply refused to turn it over at that price. That's disappointing but not the same as knowing that a beautiful set-up has been destroyed.

It does remind me of the NYT piece that I mentioned in another thread, which mentioned catastrophies that occurred to fine art objects. In one such, a wealthy couple began uncrating their collection of valuable paintings, and at the end of the day asked the maid to "take care of the boxes." Accordingly, she set them out for the trash, including a couple that had not yet been unpacked. The paintings were never recovered.

In another incident I read about, with a happier ending, a collector with more money than actual sense bought an authentic early American table for a huge sum, and had an interior decorator assemble a room full of furniture and accessories to complement it. Ten years later, he grew tired of it and asked a new interior decorator to make over the room and "take care of the old pieces."

So they all went to the local second-hand furniture store, where a discerning collector was astonished to find it for sale at the going rate for shabby old tables.

Sadly, one person's art is another's piece of cardboard ... or shabby old table.

Golden · Post by **Golden** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 12:57 pm

That is a very intense-looking cel. And with a matching background, too, I assume? I am very sorry to hear that it was lost in transit. I hope you did not pay very much for it?

Keropi · Post by **Keropi** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 1:00 pm

I don't recall ever losing any cels or sketches. A seller "lost" an anime tape I "won" on YJ because he had sold it to someone else, but that was really only a mistake on his part.

Sorry to hear about that happening to you. That's pretty unfortunate.

teggacat · Post by **teggacat** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 2:24 pm

I feel your pain Killua

, I saw that cel on YJ just recently and was really tempted to bid away, but I had just recently picked up my wishlist Kurapica cel

and funds only go so far these days,I asume you were the winning bidder, what an awful loss of a gorgeous cel

Belldandy16 · Post by **Belldandy16** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 2:33 pm

I have kinda a sad but funny one.
I bought a cel from this guy on ebay and we got to talking and he found out i work for a school. So he said he was going to send me some freebie items to show the kids. I get the package and it had the wrong cel BUT it had an even better cel that was the freebie! I asked the man where was the original cel i bought but he couldnt find it. I said it was ok becuase the freebie was better. lol

So it turned out alright in the end.
im sorry for all your guys lost cels.

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 3:01 pm

I've had a few items lost....

In 2006, I had won a cel of "Black Lady" on YJ. I had e-mailed the deputy service after 50 days but I didn't get a response. I emailed them again after 75 days, and was informed that the seller had lost the cel. My thought is that, since the auction didn't end that high, they didn't want to sell it for that price.

That same year, I had won a bunch of Sailormoon promotional seals on YJ. They made it to the deputy, but the deputy could not find them when I asked them about it.

In both cases though, the deputy did refund my money.

I'm sorry for your lost, Killua. That's a really nice cel and I'd be frustrated to lose something like that due to an error. Although, I'm surprised since Kuroneko Yamato is a really good shipping service. I've used them for mail and luggage delivery and never had a problem.

Killua · Post by **Killua** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 3:28 pm

Golden wrote:That is a very intense-looking cel. And with a matching background, too, I assume? I am very sorry to hear that it was lost in transit. I hope you did not pay very much for it?

Yes, the background was matching. Thankfully I did not have to pay anything for it since no part of the error was mine. The seller refunded the deputy the money it sent.

I actually have a black cat who is quite friendly because it's cold in the world. He's helped me deal with the sadness.

Charon · Post by **Charon** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 7:48 pm

An entire shipment of key master Tenshi ni Narumon cels was lost in transit to me. It upset me enough that I actually stopped buying cels for a year afterwards.

Cel Two

Cel Three

Cel Four

A Prince Endymion (Sailor Moon) cel was also supposedly lost in transit, then a sequence mate popped up which looked like it used the same scan. I ended up getting it for cheaper too.

Also one of the very first cels that I ever bought, never arrived. I wasn't too broken up though, because it was very cheap. I can't even recall the name of the series anymore. I've got "Elementalors" stuck in my head, but that's not it. Gragh, that's going to bug me now.

EDIT: COMPILER. That's it, ah ha. I still have a scan of the cel too.

syan · Post by **syan** » Mon Feb 01, 2010 10:17 pm

Ouch! Sorry to hear about that killua!

I've had one cel lost in transit when I was shipping it to another country. No clue what happened, as the tracking ended once it left the US.

I almost had one lost en route to me. The apartment complex left me a notice of a package, yet when I went to pick it up, they didn't have it. Except they really did - they managed to royally misplace it within that short of a timespan while cleaning out the package closet. Two months later, and oh look, they had an old package for me.

At least it was safe and I received it in the end.