First, define "really bad". ^_~

Things like damage to the cel, line fading, or it 
being stuck (to a background or a sketch). . . 
Those are all things that will definitely either 
reduce how much I'm willing to pay for a given 
cel, or reduce my interest level in it. But these 
are also things that greatly vary in severity 
from cel to cel.

Line fading, for example. I've seen cels for sale 
that have absolutely no trace lines. . . There's 
truly NOTHING left. Given that, I doubt I'd be at 
all interested. But I never say never. If it were 
a HIGH wishlist cel, with a rock bottom price, 
AND restoration was possible, I might. . . *might*
consider it.

But does the "average" cel have to have rock-
solid, perfectly dark black lines before I'll buy 
it? No. It's fantastic if the lines of a cel I 
want are perfect! But usually there's some fading 
and the decision to buy becomes a shade of grey. 
(Or perhaps "brown". ^_^) What might the going 
rate be if the cel were perfect? Does the price 
tag reflect it's current condition? Even if the 
second answer is "no", is there something special 
about the cel enough to make me willing to 
forgive it's faults, or do I feel it better to 
wait for the "next one" to come along? (Another 
from the sequence or of the same character, etc.)

Damage is the same. Whatever the situation, it's 
a game of assessing if the damage bothers you 
enough to interfere with your enjoyment of the 
cel. If the answer is "yes" -- no matter how 
slight the damage! -- then the cel you're looking 
at isn't the cel for you. Each collector has 
different tolerance levels, and sometimes a given 
collector's tolerace for damage is different from 
show to show, or even from character to character 
within a single show.

I actually just bought a damaged cel, which by my 
usual standards would have never seen my cel 
book. It was trimmed, which is possibly the type 
of damage I hate THE MOST, and was trimmed very 
unevenly at that. BUT!! It's from a very old show 
that is one of the first anime I ever saw and one 
of my favorites. Any cels at all from said show 
are extremely rare because most were destroyed by 
the studio. The cherry on the cake was that it 
was from an immediately recognizable scene -- an 
A1end pan of the main character. Even knowing it 
was cursed with the worst of the worst by my 
damage assessment meter, *IF* I wanted it was 
never even a question. . . The only question was 
what I had to do to make it mine. *^_^*

Many Sharp Smiles,
--Drac