GUEST: I have this incredible collection of drawings and cels and other paraphernalia from the artists Lee and Preston Blair, who worked with Disney. They worked on "Fantasia" and "Pinocchio" and "Bambi." They had a long career, as far as I know, at Disney. Lee Blair, in fact, was the last winner of the Olympic gold medal for watercolor. And we ended up with all of this because my grandfather befriended them when they were probably teenagers, in the late '20s. And they had no father, and he had no children at the time. And they just connected, and they had a lifelong friendship. And over the years, they gave my grandfather and grandmother an amazing collection of their drawings, of their work.
APPRAISER: You brought in a tremendous collection of items, some amazing things-- like you said, cels, storyboards, preliminary art, sketches. I mean, there was so much to go through. It was very difficult to choose just a few pieces.
GUEST: Yes, yes.
APPRAISER: And I chose what I thought were kind of wonderfully representational of the art leading up to "Fantasia." All four of these pieces were done by Preston Blair. We've got a photo of a storyboard sketch over here. And this is one of the storyboards they used for prepping the shots and trying different designs. They'd take photos of it so they could draw on it and take notes on it without damaging things at all.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: And this is my favorite. This one is absolutely beautiful.
GUEST: Mine, too.
APPRAISER: Tremendous color of one of the dancing hippos. It's done in crayon, colored pencil, and it is just a tremendously beautiful piece, a riot of color, drawn on the right animation paper. It's absolutely spectacular. And we go down here, and it's a beautiful preliminary sketch. It's got a few shapes and blocking, just to get the vision of what they wanted to make Fantasia into.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And over here is actually one of the sketches that they'd use for the ink and paint department to draw the actual cels on.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So it's a great sequence showing the evolution of the design. The sequence from Fantasia, this was called "The Dance of the Hours." It had hippos dancing with alligators and ostriches, all dancing to La Giaconda. And it was a great, great ballet, tremendous music. And it is one of the most memorable pieces. Preston Blair left Disney in 1941, just after Fantasia was produced.
GUEST: Oh, okay. Went on to work for Hanna-Barbera and Walter Lantz and the other companies.
APPRAISER: Now, these do sell very well at auction. And I imagine these aren't things you're necessarily going to part with, because they're very much a part of your family. But I'm going to give you an auction estimate for each piece.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: So because this is a photograph, but it was used in the production, it's got the notes on the bottom for the sequence and which unit worked on it, at auction that would sell for around $300 to $500.
GUEST: Mm-hmm, okay.
APPRAISER: My favorite... just look at her. Just a wonderful smile, the little flittering lashes. As a preliminary sketch, that would sell for around $5,000 to $8,000 at auction.
GUEST: Oh, my God. Mm-hmm. Wow, wow.
APPRAISER: And this one over here, the blocking... Uh-huh. ...again, $5,000 to $8,000, too.
GUEST: Geez. Wow.
APPRAISER: And this one, being used for the actual production of it, $2,000 to $3,000.
GUEST: Wow. (laughing)
APPRAISER: And then I just think about how much more we have, you know? You probably have a lot of things there, between those wonderful Jiminy Cricket sketches, you had Bambi and his girlfriend in there, tremendous. An auction value for that portion of the animation art, I would expect to see between $75,000 and $100,000.
GUEST: Wow. Wow. I wasn't expecting that.
