Well, this is just an experience that recently 
went down.  I still love collecting animation art 
and won't let a couple of jerks get me down.  But 
this is just my little tale of woe and 
frustration:

About 2 years ago, an auction of a gorgeous 
animation cel from my favorite animated series of 
all time showed up on Ebay.  This series is very 
rare and hard to come by and only a handful of 
cels were released due to fan demand.  Anyways, I 
put in a very high bid and held it for the 7 
days.  Then, with about 2 minutes remaining, 
someone sniper-bidded me.  I was on a junky old 
computer and I was practically fighting the tears 
as the computer chugged trying to send my new bid 
amount- but it was too late- the auction ended 
and I had lost.  I made sure to make note of the 
sniper-bidders ID.


Well, last summer, I noticed that said sniper 
bidder was selling off a huge chunk of his 
animation art collection on Ebay.  I decided to 
just bite the bullet.  I contacted him about 
seeing if he would possibly consider selling the 
cel he snipered me on.  He said he would rather 
do a trade, and as I am an Animation Student in 
Los Angeles, he claimed he would trade it for a 
fan-cel and some Animated Feature Official 
Scripts and yada yada.  Well, we made the 
agreement, and I let him know just how very happy 
I was.

Well, I completed my half of the bargain and 
emailed him to let him know I was ready for the 
trade.  And he wrote back  saying that he had 
went ahead and SOLD it.  But he still wanted my 
half of the bargain, he had the nerve to tell 
me.  I was absolutely crushed and was very upset 
about it for weeks.

And now- the real blow- I recently visited the 
Cel Gallery of a friend of mine who I had known 
for about 4 years.  And to my absolute horror and 
disgust- THERE was my cel, in HIS personal 
collection.  MY OWN FRIEND who KNEW how much I 
wanted that beloved dream cel and had listened to 
me talk with joy about my supposed trade for it, 
had contacted the guy and had offered him money 
on it-knowing VERY well that I had entered into a 
trade bargain for the dream cel and how much I 
had wanted it.
Needless to say I am very disappointed that 
there are some people who are so greedy and 
selfish in this hobby.  Said friend is NO LONGER 
a friend of mine- no TRUE friend would do 
something so cheap and low, and I'm disappointed 
that the dealer who had agreed to trade with me, 
went back on his word and sold the cel.

*sigh*