Charles Schulz Original Peanuts Comic Strip Artwork
GUEST:
I've collected here in Phoenix, California, New York, and it all started with my son, because he was a Peanuts fan. We started collecting toys and the plush animals and that kind of stuff, and then as he was getting older, kind of outgrowing that, we started looking for more of the art, got into the Charles Schulz signed lithographs. And then we happened across an early comic, and I just fell in love with them. I mean, how can you not?
APPRAISER:
The earliest one you have here is from 1952.
GUEST:
I know.
APPRAISER:
When did you start buying them? What years?
GUEST:
Early '90s.
APPRAISER:
So what did you pay for something like a strip like one of these dailies?
GUEST:
Um, maybe $400 or $500, and if it was the Red Baron, maybe a little bit more.
APPRAISER:
What's your favorite character?
GUEST:
Oh... Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown.
APPRAISER:
Because almost every one of them has Charlie Brown in it. These are original art.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
These are one-of-a-kinds. But you have pieces from 1952, 1953, 1958, and you have dailies and Sundays. What Charles Schulz would do is make a daily, and then they'd make copies to send off to the syndicators, the newspapers that would be running them. And then he would have the originals and give them away. And he gave most of them away. This piece right here, this is a Sunday strip from about 1953, about snowmen. It's got very little words in it, and it says it all. That's what Charles Schulz was able to do with a lot of his art was, with very few words, say it all. What you showed me, which I liked a lot, was the four days that Halley's Comet was passing through. And Schulz covered it, and you actually have all four, in order.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
It may surprise you that the value has gone up substantially of things like this. I believe your collection, insurance value would be approximately $450,000.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
This would sell for approximately $75,000 by itself.
GUEST:
(softly): Amazing. I'm blown away.
APPRAISER:
That's my job.
GUEST:
You did it.
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