RUPERT ANNUAL

Rupert Bear began life on November 8th 1920 as a newspaper strip Little Lost Bear in The Daily Express. The artist most associated with the character is Alfred Bestall whose first Ruper Bear strip appeared  on the 28th June 1935. He wrote the stories and drew those memorable pictures right up until 1965. Is there nothing better than gazing at the detailed end-papers of a Rupert annual, marvelling at the foreign lands and mystical creatures?

The annuals were not dated until 1958 and from 1960 to 1968, there are the famous Magic Painting pages that we all loved to soak with water and paintbrushes to see the colours magically appear. If these pages remain untouched, it is obviously of prime importance to qualify an annual for high grades. With Magic Paintings done, the annuals value is practically halved, worse than that if the pages were so soaked that the drying process left them wrinkly and wavy. Be sure to ask any vendor about the state of these vital pages!!

The annuals for 1970 an 1971 are traditionally difficult to find. And there is a very rare variant 1973 annual featuring Rupert with a brown face rather than a white one. Only a handful of these exist and the only recorded sale I know of was £4,800.