Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

Well, my father was a cartoonist. He started drawing in the 1930s. In the old days, cartoonists used to travel together, going to shows to do chalk talks, where they would draw and talk to the audience and entertain. And the cartoonists got to know each other. So they would swap originals. So I was a little boy. I was about four or five years old. And every so often a new cartoon would come in, and there's nothing cooler than cartoons to a little kid. And it would come in and get framed and put on the wall in our basement, and I'd get to see all these wonderful cartoons. SO I've had these with me all my life.

APPRAISER

Well, what we have here is just a great example of 20th-century pop culture. I mean, it's just the essence of what cartoons are. And I love it because it really starts from the '30s and goes on. And cartoons nowadays are popular on animation and on television and multimedia, but where it really all started was here. We start here. What I was impressed with-- the Dick Tracy. Both of these pieces right here are dailies. They were used for a daily comic strip in a magazine or a newspaper. And they're original artwork, and it is signed, actually, by Gould, which makes this even more valuable-- the fact that the artist signed it. Over here what we have is Joe Palooka, which a lot of people don't know who it was. But he came out... this cartoon came out in the 1930s and became one of the most famous sports cartoons. So for people that collect sporting art, this actually is very, very collectible. And then right here we go back and we have Blondie. Now, some people these days don't really know Blondie, but in the '30s and the '40s, it was very, very, very popular. And actually Chic Young won an award for being the national cartoon artist in 1947. So he was really, really popular at the time.

GUEST

I may have been at that award.

APPRAISER

Oh, really? At the ceremony?

GUEST

Because my father used to take me to the National Cartoonist Society meetings, and these people would be there. And I would always get dragged along-- just, God, all these wonderful people.

APPRAISER

Well, it's like the Academy Awards for a cartoonist, and he won it in 1947. And then I thought this was interesting up here because you have Popeye, but it's much later on. It's in the '60s, and a lot of these are much earlier. So it's collectible. It's not as collectible as the ones from earlier years. And what's happened now is Popeye's kind of not as popular because he was beating people up. Now, here we go. The crme de la crme is this piece. 1950 is when Schultz started. This is 1951. It's so early. It's so beautiful, and this piece alone... I saw you in line, and I just got so excited because it's so... it's so rare. You know, it's just one of a kind. It's a great piece. This piece alone is worth $8,000 to $10,000, and I would say your whole collection together is worth about $10,000 to $15,000.

GUEST

You're kidding.

APPRAISER

No, I'm not.

GUEST

Oh, my goodness.

APPRAISER

It's a wonderful piece.

GUEST

My wife wins. My wife and I had a bet going. We didn't have exact numbers, but she definitely wins.

APPRAISER

Yeah, it's a wonderful collection, and thank you for sharing it with us.

GUEST

Oh, it's marvelous. Oh, thank you.