Rare Tintin artefacts up for sale

Finding a safe investment in crisis times may be tough, but just a year before Hollywood takes Tintin to the big screen, collectors are vying for rare memorabilia of the cub Belgian cartoon hero at a Paris auction.

Finding a safe investment in crisis times may be tough, but just a year before Hollywood takes Tintin to the big screen, collectors are vying for rare memorabilia of the cub Belgian cartoon hero at a Paris auction.

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The auction is timely. A movie, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, directed by Stephen Spielberg will give a Hollywood spin to the intrepid reporter next year.

There is huge appetite for collectors of anything related to the diminutive investigative journalist and adventurer.

In 2008, the original cover of Tintin in America sold for about $931,200. Last year, a lot of almost 600 items, including hand-drawn original cartoon strips, raised nearly 1.2 million euros with buyers from as far away as China and Lebanon.

The Paris auction on May 29 includes 230 items from about 70 collectors.

A Belgian museum owns about 80-85 per cent of Herge’s work, but the scale of pieces ranging from original sketches, antiques and first edition covers, has surprised potential investors. reuters