Who’s Selling Charlie Brown?

More than five dozen lots of art and books from the Charles N. Brown Collection are on the block at Liveauctioneers.com.

Only a few items are explicitly connected with sf and fantasy, like 10 interior prozine illustrations by artists including Ed (Emsh) Emshwiller, Vincent Di Fate, John Schoenherr, David K. Stone and Don Sibley. And the hand-painted animation cell of wizard Merlin used in the production of Disney’s Sword in the Stone (1963) with the caption “Women…Schwomen!!”

Otherwise, there are several examples of Arts and Crafts style furniture and a great many pieces of ethnic, antique and even ancient pottery. Any collector might be interested in these, but I find it especially easy to imagine Charlie owning this piece in particular:

Finely painted Greek blackware footed amphora, possibly Corinthian, 600-500 BC, of tapering ovoid form with applied handles at the shoulder, decorated with erotic scenes having a Nympth and Saytr on one side and an aroused Centaur on the other, with a black band below the decoration and a ring of black rays around the bottom edge, the whole rising on a circular foot

There also are several batches of mystery novels, by Leslie Charteris, John Dickson Carr, Anthony Boucher and others. They may be collectibles now, however, most of the books in the photos look well-worn – they remind me of my own shelf of carefully accumulated, out-of-print Poul Anderson paperbacks bought cheaply second-hand when I was in college. Did Charlie regard his old books with the same affection?

[Thanks to Bill Burns for the story.]

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