Original ‘Calvin & Hobbes’ Page Sells At Auction For More Than $200,000
How much is an original page of Calvin and Hobbes worth? Judging by the recent sale of a 1986 watercolor original Sunday strip, the answer is apparently "a little over $200,000."You may remember that we told you about the auction of the page back in September, when it was first was put up for sale by Brian Basset, a cartoonist who had owned it for the last twenty-six years after receiving it as a gift from Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson.
When the auction was announced, it was anticipated that the piece would reach a high final price due to the scarcity of original Watterson art on the market (The last piece of his to be auctioned, an oil painting of Richard Thomspon's Cul de Sac character Petey Otterloop, sold for $13,000 earlier this year). According to the Daily Cartoonist, such anticipation was well-placed, with the final price for the 1986 Sunday strip ending up being an impressive $203,150. To get an idea of how valuable this piece became, an original 1966 Peanuts strip, signed by Charles Schulz, sold for "just" $29,000 this weekend.
Perhaps it's time to go searching around your attics to see if you have any original art that could be auctioned off to raise some funds in time for the holidays, just in case.