Beware Seller with fakes

[Killua]

Probably should have made a topic much earlier than this, but everyone should be wary of seller Italiantom. He has been offing fakes for years as legitimate, often calling them "publicity" cels or sometimes just saying they're original animation cels. Some of the art he's selling is genuine, I believe, which makes the matter all the trickier as it's harder to tell what's real and what's not.

Most of the fakes he sells are poorly done repros. As soon as he sells one, he just lists another identical one in its place. I wrote to him about a year ago informing him much of his stuff was definitely fake and he claimed he just bought a ton of stuff from some guy in Tennessee, but his behavior hasn't changed at all and he's still busy listing misleading items. I reported him to ebay a few times, but they've done nothing about it.

[Matt]

I have also dealt wtih this guy and he gives me the same info, bought everything from some guy in Tenneessee. He was selling some VERY poorly done Peanuts cels a while ago at regular Peanuts prices and they were selling! Avoid him!

[wELCOME cONSUMER]

What a shame. People are buying from him and not realizing what they are receiving.

[zerospace]

UGH! I've seen that seller's stuff before and always believed most of it to be fake ... sad.

[D123]

He's selling a Sailor Moon cel!!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SAILOR-MOON-USA ... 2566ec85b3

It looks pretty terrible too

[wELCOME cONSUMER]

Wow, that's hideous.

[oxypetalus]

Holy moly that's bad A publicity cel eh ?? o___O

[D123]

Is there such a thing as “publicity” cels?

[wELCOME cONSUMER]

Yes, I own some publicity cels. They are hand painted by the original studio artists in an effort to promote the series and broaden viewership. They are similar to sericels or rilezu cels in that they are done post-production or in-between seasons but often do not depict a specific frame or scene from the series. They are generally composed shots, featuring the main character's entire body, and the title of the series will be painted as a logo on the cel (hence the "publicity" part).

[D123]

Ahh Thank you wELCOME cONSUMER !! I've never heard of that term before learned something new I guess the studio was just having a bad day with that Sailor Moon

[Killua]

My impression of publicity cels is that they are (sorta) the western equivalent of hanken, which just makes calling those pieces of fake repro junk "publicity cels" all the more egregious.

[wELCOME cONSUMER]

Keep in mind that publicity cels are done en masse. There will be several that look exactly alike. They do look quite nice, similar to a model cel, but hankens are one-offs and tend to be of higher quality. You'll see time consuming techniques, such as airbrush, on a hanken but never on a publicity cel. Think of a publicity cel as a deluxe flyer advertising the show.

Western series have their own copyright ("hanken") cels they use for the images which appear on VHS, DVD, posters, etc. Here's my own shameless example.