Sleeping Beauty Turns Ugly in Fake eBay “Originals”
A rather enterprising individual has taken to tracing some of Hannah-Barbera & Disney’s oldest characters, forging signatures and posting these items for sale on eBay. To the untrained eye or possibly someone looking for a gift for an animation enthusiast these pieces seem almost too good to be true but it takes only a glimpse to see what went wrong with some of these forgeries.
Pretty ingenious right? Who could tell these were forged?!
The addition of signatures really adds a bit of spice to things but in adding the first name of the great Grim Natwick, these counterfeiters also added the perfect review of their drawing skills
Grim indeed…
Let’s start off with some of the best.
Ding A Ling Wolf (Hanna-Barbera)
Pretty good drawing here, not $49.95 good but still good enough to pin on the fridge. The use of red and blue pencils try to give the look of an ‘authentic’ animation pre-production sketch. Although this “Ding A Ling” should clearly set off alarm bells for potential buyers I rate this one pretty high, it gets a 9/10.
Pinocchio
Again, to the untrained eye this sketch has the line-work and colour keys of a pre-production sketch. So far as blatant lies go the addition of a signature by Harry Holt would be enough for Pinocchio’s nose grow to redwood sized proportions Regardless of being a fake, they clearly put in a bit of effort here. Compared to the rest it scores high too. 8/10
Then it goes a bit downhill.
Sleeping Beauty
An attempt at Sleeping Beauty’s main protagonist, Aurora. Now the quality seems to be slipping here. First off, why is her right hand like that? Plus where is the rest of her arm? Foreshortening is still very important, even in pre-production. Secondly, her eyes. Disney are distinguished for their ‘Disney Princess eyes’ Here, the ‘artist’ pretty much got bored drew a line and added a small blob for a pupil. More ugly than beauty. 5/10
And finally,
Alice in Wonderland
I’m not sure what happened here.
Let’s start off with the smaller issues. There’s so little effort in this drawing, it’s slightly painful. The line-work is pretty awful that’s before we move onto the biggest problem area, the face. What is happening here? Are those eraser marks around the mouth? Alice’s head-band only reaches across half her head and is crudely scribbled in, almost as if it was a last-minute idea. The remaining ‘bow’ part is untouched and remains as floppy circles on her head. Finally, the eyes are enough to make you agree with the Queen of Hearts. Off with her head! 0/10.
Also the description. No mention of the original animator, just ‘master animator’.
If the illustrations were not a dead giveaway we have to look at some of the feedback too. No negative feedback whatsoever, all completely positive. Seems a bit too good to be true right? Taking a closer look, we see a lot of the same users buying from this shop. A coincidence? However within a couple of days between each transaction, another purchase is made from the same buyer. There seems to be something fishy going on here.
One major thing is also missing, regardless of these pieces being signed there are no seals from Disney indicating this is authentic. Most animation companies will produce a seal or certificate of authenticity on all pre-production art and animation cels which are passed on to be sold or authentic reproductions. If there’s no seal, best to check that the seller is genuine. There are many reputable sellers who deal in pre-production art directly from Disney and other animation companies. If any of these drawings were original they would probably be stored in the Walt Disney Animation Research Library and not up on eBay for under $100 each.
Unfortunately for this eBay seller, the animation community were pretty quick to pick up on their scheme, we were highlighted to this via the Bancroft Brothers on Facebook (you can view the sellers page from there and inform eBay). Links to the shop have been passed around via Facebook and social media. With increasing knowledge of the shop’s existence, it’s only a matter of time before it is shut down but remember, no matter how well put together this scam and many others like is it will only take one person to fall prey to the scheme and find themselves ripped off.