Celluloid Trash Can Discovery Turns Into a Treasure Trove : Collecting: Since learning the value of animation cels found in Burbank 30 years ago, the Westchester man has become an aficionado.

Bill Blum never thought a cartoon would change his life.

But a discovery 30 years ago has turned the onetime garbage collector into an avid art collector who keeps his valuable works locked in concrete safes and frequents Sotheby’s auctions.

Fresh out of high school and working as a Burbank city laborer, Blum was filling in on Saturday garbage truck detail when he discovered a trash barrel full of drawings and painted celluloid.

Most of the barrel’s contents, including images from “Bambi” and “Peter Pan,” ended up in the garbage dump. But Blum stuffed one roll of celluloid in his pocket and took it home to his wife, thinking they could use it to decorate his young daughter’s room.

It clashed, she said. Winnie the Pooh already covered the room. Painted rabbits and foxes wouldn’t blend.

She re-rolled the plastic and stuffed it in a box.

Twenty-six years later, the couple was watching television when a story about the increasing value of animation art flashed on the screen. They retrieved the celluloid roll, which had remained stored in the same box through three moves, and took it to a Burbank gallery specializing in cartoon art.

“I figured, top money, we’d get $50 for the cels,” Blum said during a recent interview.

No, the gallery owner told them, the 17 images of Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Fox, from Walt Disney’s “Song of the South,” could fetch up to $100,000.

“He looked at them and his eyes were as big as dollars,” Blum said of Howard Lowery, who owns Howard Lowery Gallery in Burbank.

“It’s an amazing little find,” Lowery said. “They were almost flawless.”

The “Song of the South” celluloid frames--or “cels” as aficionados call them--are particularly valuable because the 1946 movie mixed animation and live action.

“They are just scarce because the film had only short but very memorable animated sequences,” Lowery said. “They are quite rare and important pieces.”

Lowery believes collectors are interested in animation art because they grew up with many of the characters. “These things have a personal meaning for them,” he said.

The value of the work also has increased rapidly, especially as computers have made the hand inking and painting of celluloid virtually obsolete.

Lowery explained the old process: Animation artists created characters’ images on paper, and, once the image was approved, it was sent to the paper and ink department. A blank sheet of celluloid was placed over the drawing and the image traced in ink onto the plastic. The plastic was then turned over and paint applied to the character’s body. The celluloid images would then be photographed, one by one, over a painted background.

In 1960, Disney stopped inking cels by hand and started using a copy machine. The painting was still done by hand. In the ‘90s the entire process has been computerized.

Blum, who now works teaching Department of Water and Power employees to operate heavy equipment, said he has become intoxicated with collecting animated art.

“This thing just takes you like an addiction,” he said. “It’s more or less a labor of love.”

The 59-year-old Westminster resident has sold eight of the “Song of the South” cels for prices ranging from $1,700 to $4,600, netting him “more than $10,000,” he says. He has even bought nine or 10 more cels, including a Crusader Rabbit from the old children’s show, “Sheriff John’s Lunch Brigade,” and a Yosemite Sam. He plans to keep the remaining “Song of the South” pieces as mementos.

“You look at these animation cels and they’re one of a kind,” Blum said. “Most of the artists who drew these are in their 90s. When they die, that’s it.”

But, oh, if he could only turn back the clock now. If only he could retrieve the background drawings from “Bambi” and the scratched celluloid of Peter Pan.

“I look back there and I think about what was in that trash can that I threw away!”