Do you still have your "first cel"?

[sensei]

Today, July 15, is a date that I like to celebrate in some modest way, if only by opening up one of my cel books and flipping to this cel, which is the very first piece of anime art that I bought on that date fifteen years ago. I was a total newbie in buying cels at that time, and I paid something more than double what cels of similar quality were going for on dealers' pages and other auctions. But I'd been bitten hard by the Cardcaptor bug, and something in Sakura's and Kero-chan's clueless looks made me want this one regardless of price. And yes, I still have it, and yes, I can still put my hands on it. In fact, thirteen years later, the missing top layer with Syaoran on it appeared on the market, and so the two of then now ride together again.

So: do any of the rest of you still have your "first"? Can you still put your hands on it within a reasonable amount of time (I had to quick look at my CCS Inventory for the book and page number...)? And does it still carry a memory of when you were innocent of the pleasures of viewing plastic sheets with layers of paint on the back? (Ah ... but that particular plastic sheet with precisely that image painted on the back!)

[MajinTangerine]

Yep, I still have my first cel! It was a few years before I acquired another, but this one will always hold a special place in my heart. I do not know what made me look up cels that day, but I saw this Vegeta cel, and I immediately wanted a piece of anime history.

http://rubberslug.s3.amazonaws.com/user ... xbwm_o.jpg

Here it is with its background

http://rubberslug.s3.amazonaws.com/user ... fzhl_o.jpg


Since then, I have been watching dragonball cels every night on ebay, mandarake, YJ, and I have not looked back since.

[Drac of the Sharp Smiles]

My first cel is still one of my favorites, so I definitely still have it. ^_^ Better yet, even though I was an uninformed newbie bidding on eBay, it came to me for pretty much an on-par cost for the series. The scan is marked as being created December 1999, but I know I did not own a scanner when I bought this cel, so it was bought a little before that.



I was looking for Sailor Pluto.... I found and nabbed this. Oddly, that became the theme for my collection ever after. When I'm looking for one thing, I accidentally find something else I want. ^_^

Edit: Oh, and I missed the second question! Yes, I could put my hands on it very quickly... probably within 60 seconds. However, that's mostly due to (A) the fact I keep my books in order alphabetically by series, and (B) not having as many Mosquiton cels as from some other series, so I don't have as far to look once I go to "M". ^_^

[bulleta]

Sure.
http://bulleta.zero-space.net/displayitem.php?itemid=17

Mine was a Christmas gift in Christmas 1997. He's easy to find in my cel book, he's the first page of my Chibi/Baby Trunks book... all of my books are labeled because my Dad gave me a labelmaker for Christmas 2 years ago. That cel started me on my quest to get a cel of Trunks in every form. In fact, it didn't take me much longer to get my second, and the only reason I remember that so vividly is that it was the first Anime Central in April 1998.
Future Trunks:
http://bulleta.zero-space.net/displayitem.php?itemid=18
(actually all of mine are numbered so I could tell you what my 42nd cel was, my 221st, my 690th... and so on... I'm just a little anal about order. )

[zerospace]

Yep!

My first cel: http://www.zero-space.net/gallery2/disp ... ?itemid=43

Bought from AnimeGame when I knew very little about Japanese animation art. I only knew about production art because my mom was a huge fan of Disney and always wanted some art of her own. Little did I know that I paid a totally reasonable price and got myself an A1End of my favorite character. I think I bought him in mid to late 2000 or 2001 (in my junior or senior year in college). Unfortunately, my records from those days are bad -- I'm missing a lot of those old emails, but I do know exactly what I paid for him ^^;;. I might have a printed copy of the PayPal transaction that would tell me exactly when I bought it, though -- I'll have to dig those up one of these days just so I can update my digital records .

Months later, I bought some more GW cels, signed up for Celga's YJ deputy service and met fellow collector evilminion online (at the time, she had some nice cels of Wing Zero for sale, including this one: http://www.zero-space.net/gallery2/disp ... ?itemid=78, which may actually be my 2nd cel, but I'm not entirely sure anymore). The rest... well, that's history now!

Yikes... 14-15 years collecting? No wonder I have so many cels!

[star-phoenix]

My first cel was of Tomahome from the FY OVA, which I bought around 1998. I sold it about 10 years ago as I no longer enjoyed it, and glad it found a good home. I still have my first Disney cel I bought which was this one of Donald that I bought back in 2005:

http://starphoenix.rubberslug.com/galle ... mID=110374

[lunacels]

I bought my first two cels at the same time from Splash Page Comics in January 1999. One of the two I sold, but I still have Neptune. Purchased for $50...
http://lunacels.rubberslug.com/gallery/ ... temID=6885

I still remember the first cel I tried for--one of Chibiusa holding Luna-P, but I was outbid by Christy on eBay (final bid was around $205, which I thought was a small fortune then). I think she finally sold it years later...sometimes I wonder where it ended up! It's the one on the bottom right here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010818122 ... biusa.html

Those were the good old days!

[ReiTheJelly]

I no longer have my first cel, but I do still have the two sketches I bought at that time (I ordered several items from that same sale).
http://stemcels.rubberslug.com/gallery/ ... emID=60039
http://stemcels.rubberslug.com/gallery/ ... emID=57544

One of these years I'll update the scans and descriptions (which apparently haven't been updated in 9 of the 12 years I've owned them)

[teppy]

Great thread. I traded away my first cel (a voltron cel) for another cel. Part of me felt bad about it, but I just lost that feeling for the cel. I think it's wonderful if a collector keeps their first cel, as long as it continues to bring them joy when they look at it

[cutiebunny]

I don't remember what my first cel was as I purchased three cels probably within a day or two of each other in June 2003; A Sailor Moon episode 82 cel of Chibiusa shooting a slingshot, an episode 166 cel of Nehelenia and an episode 193 cel of Lead Crow. I was currently at training in Georgia at the time for 10 weeks, relying solely on the facility's transportation on the weekends to go off base as I was too young to rent a car. With the exception of fried chicken, food was horrible; Their idea of 'chow mein' was stewed chicken/veg with cheapy dried salad noodles on top. There wasn't much in the way of entertainment there if your idea of fun did not involve copious amounts of beer, so I spent a lot of time in the computer lab watching anime or whatever else I could find. I was 3000 miles away from any friends or family. My first cel purchases were more because I felt depressed and really needed something to pick me up.

My room at the barracks received little sunlight, so I framed and happily displayed the Lead Crow cel in a frame I found at Wal-Mart. I knew nothing of conservation then

But to answer the question, yes, I still own all three cels. I also own my first "stand in line" convention sketch and my first bought shikishi sketch as well.

[frozentime]

I bought my first two cels at the same time from Splash Page Comics in January 1999.

Those were the good old days!

Wow, this thread is bringing back more memories than I expected. I had forgotten about Splash, and I purchased a few from there.

My first cel came from a dealers room at a con... probably the first or second Katsucon (95 or 96), but I can't remember for sure. I can still picture the room because the experience is etched in my mind, but not sure I remember the actual con.

http://robert.rubberslug.com/gallery/in ... emID=70926

I still have it, and can't imagine myself ever selling or trading it. As to the second question, I can also find it less than a minute, since my Miyu folders are in order, and all cels are in order of appearance. The scanned cel also makes a nice desktop background because it isn't overly busy and frames where I tend to locate the desktop file icons.

[kamidake]

Sure does! http://ix.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_in ... mID=353987

The cel the started it all! Got it from Anime Nation. I wish I had bought up all the kamidake cels they had at the time, thinking back on it.

And yes to being able to put my hands on it in under a minute. Kamidake gets his very own cel book.

[JWR]

Yes I still have my 1st cel which I purchased from Rick at Anime Link at the San Diego Comic Con right after watching the Oh My Goddess OVA's in the con's anime rooms.
http://ryan.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv_ ... emID=32472

[sensei]

An impressive and nostalgic "show!" Thanks to all my fellow collectors for participating. It is interesting to read how vivid the memories are of the period surrounding "that" purchase. I also remember experiencing some "buyer's remorse" as I suspected that I'd overpayed for my cel, and then going to an "arts fair" at my university. Yowzers! Everything that people had for sale was at least what I'd paid for my little cel, and not even original art: there were photos, lithos, giclees, etc. etc. and most of it butt-ugly in design and color.

Well, nothing in this little show is butt-ugly, no matter how far apart our personal tastes may be. In fact, I'm impressed by how often the cels show a kind of hypnotic intensity in the expression. A "you know you need to own me, don't you" look. I'm especially impressed by JWR's Belldandy (a character that appealed to me early on as well), kamidake's Kamidake ("Die happy, for you die at the hand of the totally baddest ass in the entire world!"), lunacels' moody Sailor Saturn, and especially zerospace's wonderful Duo portrait. Not to mention the two intense DBZ cels (thanks to MajinTangerine and bulleta).

And yet there are quirky images too. I think frozentimes' Miyu might be passed over by some as being too much of a "sequence" cel, but it really catches the distinctive feel of the OVA, one of the artistically finest anime series in the 90s. And I'm bemused by Drac's Mosquiton cel because it catches an interest of my own: the intense moment frozen in time, including the characters who are simply going through their day as if nothing intense is happening.

It's interesting: I have sold or traded items from my early collecting career, and honestly I don't think about them. Some I can just about picture if I try. But I don't miss them. There seems to be some kind of link that is either there with an image. And for some it's still "there" after ten or fifteen years. But when that link dissipates, then it's as if it's already gone.

All this reminds me that it's time for a garage sale. Not including my poor clueless Sakura and Kero, however.

[x]

I do indeed have my first cel. I showed it earlier on the 'cheapie' thread

http://popzap.rubberslug.com/gallery/in ... mID=382362

I think I got it around 1999 or 2000 from a US online anime store - can't remember which one it was.
I got it framed as soon as I received it and it has been sitting on my wall ever since.
It does show how little I knew about cels back then - who would frame a 'D' grade cel?

I was just happy to have a physical link to an anime that I loved so I didn't really care.