Rare bear book may fetch £16k at auction

11:23am Friday 14th September 2007

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TWO rare Rupert Bear annuals will be the star lot when a collection of memorabilia featuring the cartoon character comes up for auction.

It is thought that only a dozen of the rare 1973 annuals featuring a brown-faced Rupert were printed after publishers changed his appearance to white to meet demands of young fans.

Now Dukes of Dorchester is set to sell two of the sought-after books at a two-day auction on October 4 and 5 and experts believe they could sell for up to £16,000 each because of their rarity.

Amy Brenan, assistant auctioneer and valuer at Dukes, said that the annuals are part of a collection of Rupert memorabilia being sold by a later Rupert illustrator Freddie Chaplain.

She said the 1973 annuals feature the work of long-time Rupert illustrator Alfred Bestell, who as was his tradition, drew Rupert with a brown face, hands and feet for the front cover while inside his face was white.

She added: "However the publishers had received letters from children asking why was Rupert always white on the inside and brown on the front. And although they had already run off between 12 and 15 of the books with the brown-faced Rupert they decided to change the cover and printed Rupert with a white face.

"This incensed Bestell, who vowed never to illustrate an annual again."

Ms Brenan said that more than 100,000 white-faced 1973 Rupert annuals were published, making the brown faced annuals extremely rare and collectable.

"Those dozen brown-faced copies are now sought-after the world over by Rupert Bear fans and collectors of comics alike.

"They have sold in the past for £16,000, but we have an estimate of between £5,000 and £7,000.

"One of the brown-faced annuals is being sold as an individual lot and the other is part of a run of annuals from 1970-1979.

"The two annuals are in pristine condition."

She said the collection being sold features almost every Rupert annual and several pieces of original artwork by Bestell and Rupert creator Mary Tourtel. It could sell for up to £50,000 in total.

Rupert Bear began life on November 8, 1920, in the Daily Express and has appeared ever since. Alfred Bestall wrote and illustrated his last Rupert story in 1965, but continued creating annual covers until the 1973 episode.