The $3.2 million sale showed demand across anime, television animation and production art from multiple generations.
By Intelligent Collector Staff | October 22, 2025
Heritage Auctions’ Oct. 17–21 The Art of Anime and Everything Cool Signature® Auction realized $3.2 million, setting a new record for the highest-grossing non-Disney animation and animation art auction ever held.
The five-day auction included more than 2,500 lots and reported a 99.99% sell-through rate. It brought together material from The Simpsons, Peanuts, Looney Tunes, Studio Ghibli, Hanna-Barbera, anime features and television animation, creating one of the broadest animation art market tests of the year.
The top result was Banksy’s original drawing from the 2010 Simpsons episode “MoneyBART.” The Simpsons Banksy Original Drawing From “MoneyBART” sold for $168,000, setting a new auction record for art from the long-running series.
Other results showed demand well beyond the headline lot. A The Simpsons “Home Sweet Home-Diddly-Dum-Doodly” Brady Bunch Couch Gag Original Key Master Production Cel Setup brought $22,000, while a Peanuts It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Linus, Lucy and Sally Production Cel with Master Production Background realized $30,000.
The result matters because animation art is increasingly segmented by studio, property, production format and nostalgia cycle. Anime buyers, Peanuts collectors, television-animation fans and contemporary-art-adjacent bidders do not all behave the same way, but a strong auction has to reach all of them.
For consignors deciding the best place to sell animation art, this sale shows how important cross-category exposure can be. Heritage’s auction did not rely on a single property or studio; it gathered enough depth across the field to set a record for the entire non-Disney animation category.
Source: Heritage Auctions press release (October 22, 2025).