> production as in "not used for the release." If 
> the cels were not used in the final film or DVD,
> their value is not the same.

Yeah, some people consider that cels sequences (or 
part of sequences) that were discared for the 
final version of the anime are actualy more 
valuable because nobody can have that exact 
picture.

> AIC does have a history of distributing
> that were not used in the actual film.

Please, don't confuse everything ! Many years ago, 
AIC made copies of some cel (From AMG OVA, Tenchi 
OVA and Elementalors) for the purpose of 
advertising. Those cels were not part of the 
production process at all : they were made after 
so they could be given/sold very cheap when 
promoting the anime. (They were originaly sold 
around $10)

They didn't made any such things since that time 
so you won't get any on newer anime !

Now, from any studio, you can get cels that 
weren't used in the final version : Scene may be 
cut-out, redone or corrected... When you get whole 
scenes from the studio, you will have all the 
rought sketches, genga, douga, various cels layers 
and correction layers and so on. And the 
timesheet... Part of the use of a timesheet is to 
specify which cels should be used and what layers 
should be put together.

And naturaly, frames or even whole sequences may 
be cut-out, replaced, modify or whatever during 
the editing process. Which doesn't involve actual 
cels anymore but is done directly on the film.
In fact, you will often notice differences between 
various version of an anime : The LD/DVD version 
may have changes compared to what was originaly 
broadcasted on the TV/theater. US version may be 
different from the french one and both have 
changes compared to the japanese...

When Cartoon Network remove all references to god 
in Big O or when they put a towel on a naked 
Ryoko, that's pretty obvious and extrem. But there 
is often less important changes that are hard to 
notice.

If I take back the example of Nadia, my friend 
noticed the following things (among others) :

- Change between the original japanese version and
  the new release of it : Special effects were
  added for some scene, some cels were re-done
  because they had mistake (Nadia walking infront
  of a windows but having the light reflection
  effect like if she was walking behind it...),
  scenes redone because the quality was too poor,
  frames completed (In the original, some cels
  were simply forgoten and you have a white frame.
  Or they forgot some of the layers),...

- Change between the french/italien/japanese TV
  version : Some scene were removed for various
  reasons (censoring, the international master was
  defect in some places), some were re-edited and
  re-ordered to make things easier to understand
  or whatever...

  The technic used were : Editing out a part and
  slowing the whole scene to get the same length.
  Replacing cut/changed part with a fixed shoot
  or by re-using another part of the scene a
  second time.
  Replacing some frame with similar frame but
  taken from another episode.
  ...

That's only some example of what may happen to an 
anime during the production process and even after 
it was released.

If you are interested, you can see some of the
changes made on Nadia at this URL (in french) :
http://www.multimania.com/lambin/nadia/e
pisodes.html

Cheers,
Yann Stettler