Antiques Roadshow

APPRAISER

One of my favorite Disney films is Pinocchio. And this is a character called Lampwick, who is an evil boy who gets turned into a donkey. Tell me, how did you get this?

GUEST

My parents always had this on the bookshelf adjacent to the mantel in our house in Chicago. I grew up with him, and until I saw the movie, I always wondered, "Why does he look so angry," you know? But it's pretty evident why once you see the film.

APPRAISER

You said you tried to do some research on Disney figures, and you weren't able to find it.

GUEST

I found a couple, but they were smaller than this, and they didn't have the detail that he has.

APPRAISER

It's got incredible detail. On it is marked "Copyright Walt Disney Productions." This in fact is a unique object. This was made as a character model so that the animators for the 1940 film would follow this as they were doing their animation sheets. We see a lot of animation cels here on the show, but one of the reasons you don't see the character models is because they're very rare. They were made of plaster, and they were usually destroyed after the film.

GUEST

Oh, my.

APPRAISER

It is so incredibly painted and detailed because they wanted the animators to have a very good example of what this particular character looked like. So because these are rare, they really are something that is quite treasured by Disney collectors. The last one of these sold at auction for $6,000.

GUEST

Well, that's nice.

APPRAISER

And it was a model of Lampwick when he was still a boy.

GUEST

Okay, okay.

APPRAISER

As a donkey, he's even more desirable.

GUEST

Oh, boy.

APPRAISER

So I would put an auction estimate of $6,000 to $8,000 on him.

GUEST

That's wonderful.