Because of improved documentation, collectors will find it easier to research the animators of more recent films. “Disney keeps a record of what animator makes what scene,” Tumbusch says, “so you can get that information and use it to make decisions. Scripts are filed with the Library of Congress and are all timed at so many seconds per scene, so you can figure out who was responsible for what scene by viewing a video to pace a scene out frame by frame.”
 Everyone loves a good Hollywood yarn, and if one is associated with an animated film, values can increase. Consider famed surrealist artist Salvador Dali—a friend of Disney’s—who in 1946 worked on story sketches for a Disney film project called Destino with studio artists John Hench and Bob Cormack. The work hit a financial snag and was shelved until 1999, when Roy Disney fought to have it completed using Dali’s original art and new computer-generated animation. The result was a seven-minute film, nominated for a 2004 Academy Award in the Best Animated Short Film category. The limited edition lithographs created from Dali’s original film art are currently valued from $800 to $1,500.
Start with the Classics
According to Bailey, a significant Disney art collection should be comprised
of some of the earliest and most rare characters—such as Mickey Mouse, Snow White and Pinocchio from the 1940s. “The most important pieces would be production backgrounds from key scenes in the film,” he says. In 1996, a set from an early Disney short, The Mad Doctor (1933), sold in London for $38,295. “It was Mickey Mouse on a watercolor production background, and was one of the most expensive pieces ever sold there,” Bailey adds.
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