Unclear if first Mickey Mouse sketches auctioned
MIAMI (Reuters) - The first drawings of characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse went up for auction but the head of Guernsey's auction house in New York City has declined to say if they had sold.
"The matter was not resolved last evening," Arlan Ettinger, Guernsey's president, which held the auction at the New York Historical Society on Saturday, told Reuters.
There had been a minimum set of $800,000, (501,000 pounds) which was met, said Ettinge today, but there was "some confusion over who the bidder was."
"It was advisable to stop the process and see what was going on," Ettinger said. The auction was done live, by telephone, and over the Internet by Leftbid.com, he said.
The cartoon drawings by Walt Disney and UB Iwerks date back to 1928 and are titled Plane Crazy, Ettinger said. They had been appraised at between $3.2 million and $3.7 million, he said.
"But we are working very hard on a very exciting resolution that will be to everyone's benefit," said Ettinger.
The story board was being sold to save the struggling International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton Florida, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reported.
The museum was founded by Beetle Bailey creator Mort Walker, and has debts of roughly $2 million, the paper said. SunTrust Bank, which is owed about $1 million in late payments on its mortgage wanted to hold the drawings as collateral, the paper said. But the museum refused to turn over the sketches, the Sentinel said.
PHOTO CAPTION: Sunday May 20, 08:33 PM
The first drawings of characters Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse went up for auction but the head of Guernsey's auction house in New York City has declined to say if they had sold. File photo shows mickey as the Scorcerer's Apprentice. REUTERS
