1966 MGM Grinch Figure
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GUEST:
My father worked in advertising his entire career. And his job was a media buyer. So the advertiser would give him a budget, and he would figure out how to spend the budget. One of his decisions was to help sponsor the first broadcast of "The Grinch." And, as a sponsor, he was presented with several items, including our statue.
APPRAISER:
Which is really a neat, neat, neat statue. And what I thought of the minute I saw it, when you think of Christmas, as a Baby Boomer especially, you think of, well, Santa Claus, obviously, and then you think of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and then you think of the Grinch. Because growing up watching TV, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" is an iconic cartoon that's been repeated year after year after year. What we have here is a plaster statue, built up and painted beautifully in the likeness of the Grinch, and it's marked right on the front-- it tells you exactly what it is. It says, "MGM's animated special of Dr. Seuss's 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas,' CBS TV," and the date, 1966, when it first aired. And on the back, it's got the copyright, 1966 MGM. This just goes into so many different areas of collectibles. It's going to appeal to animation collectors, it's going to appeal to Chuck Jones collectors, it's going to appeal to Dr. Seuss collectors. And as I said, again, Baby Boomers in general just love buying things that they remember when they were kids. Not only was this one of the most popular Christmas cartoons ever, but they've done movies, and now it's Broadway, et cetera, et cetera. The value is a little tricky on this, because there's a lot of maquettes, which are done as models for the animators to figure out how to draw the characters. This is more of a special piece to me. I think this is... you said, it was a promotional piece made specifically for certain people. It's definitely going to hold a lot of interest at auction. At auction, I would probably estimate it between $5,000 and $7,000.
GUEST:
Wow, wow.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, it's just a great piece.
GUEST:
Thank you.
APPRAISER:
I'm thrilled that you brought it here.
GUEST:
Thank you very much.
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