This past June your editor attended a very exciting, precedent-setting auction of several kinds of comic art, conducted by the PB 84 division of the internationally famous Sotheby Parke Bernet Galleries, in New York City. Included were a great many Disney toys which have appeared over the years, Disney animation cels, and a number of comic strip originals. Afterwards, we talked with Pamela Brown, of the Galleries, and with James Holdstein who did the extensive catalog issued on this occasion. We were very pleased that Ms. Brown, who had been an Art History major at Vassar, and Mr. Holdstesn, who had majored in Classics at Brown and had taken a year's training course at the Sotheby Galleries in London, share our optimism and that of their firm, about the growing market for comic art.
We should add a further note that will be of help to anyone contemplating buying at an auction of this kind. Approximate valuations, or ‘educated guesses' based on comparable auction values, are included in the catalog for the auction, for each item involved. Bidding normally begins at about one-third to one-half of these estimates, but the final price at which an item ts sold may well be less than, or more than, these preliminary figures. The items can always be seen and examined for several days before an auction takes place, and for those who haven't had the opportunity to be present on those days, each comic strip or comic item is held up and displayed immediately before it is auctioned.
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