Cels Forum

>My first question is on cel books - are they usually hard 
>or soft covered?  And if soft covered, how do you make sure 
>nothing gets bent??

"cel books" (i.e. artbooks from Itoya, usually) are basically
"stiff but flexible." - so the covers will flex, but never 
crease. Unless you try, of course. You can always make your
own celbook, too, just make sure to use archival acid-free and
PVC-free/plastic-softener-free materials (Itoya's is lignin-free,
too). 


>Next - are the cel sequence numbers always in the upper 
>right corner?? Could they be in the upper left?  My concern 
>is that I got a SM cel that has a number - and it doesn't 
>look like there's any letter (well, the thing that looks 
>like a 2 could be a Z, I suppose) - in the upper left. 

Uh, I always believed the numbers were in the upper right.
Maybe since SM is one of the "earlier" anime series, there
was no standard so to speak? I don't think that could be a 
Z, just because I've never seen a single-digit cel represented
like "09". Could be wrong, of course.


>Also, when I FINALLY got the cel today, I noticed something 
>wierd about it - but it could just be me.  This may be 

Where did you get this?

>If you check out the url above, you can see what I mean 
>about the cel sequence number, and you can see the missing 
>wing (so to speak) between her body and her bent left arm, 
>and between her skirt, arm and Star Fighters hand on the 
>right.

Wait - HER left arm, or arm on the left?
It isn't uncommon for "errors" to occur in the painting 
process, I'm sure. After all, SM is a TV series with many 
seasons, they really had to crank out a lot of frames. If 
something as obvious occurs in an OAV or movie cel, that's
certainly something to worry about, I wager.


One thing I guess everyone here should be aware of is that, 
given the skill and necessary materials, it can be very easy
to rip someone off with a counterfeit cel (which, by the way,
is WRONG for those of you who aren't sure -_-). This isn't to
say yours is a ripoff - I don't know, and hopefully someone 
else here knows a LOT about SM cels. I honestly don't know how
you can protect yourself from them, either. I mean, only now
do some studios place their seal on their cels; very rare cels
with a very high demand are probably the biggest targets for
ripoffs. Very scary, if you think about it, dumping lots of 
money for something which may a fake. -_- It may be possible to
study the chemical composition of the cel paint - but I think
that would be out of the normal collector's league.

Hmmm