BLOOMINGTON -- Let's say you wake up at 4 a.m. on Black Friday next week, spend the whole day fighting other shoppers for must-have deals but still can't find something for that special someone who appreciates the "finer things" in life.

How about a Picasso?

Among the 380 lots at the Bloomington Auction Gallery's annual day-after-Thanksgiving estate auction is Lot 94: three free-hand ink drawings by Pablo Picasso on an old book's dust jacket, signed by the artist himself.

But bring your checkbook. The drawings are expected to fetch from $40,000 to $100,000, definitely on the high end of items ever sold at the Grove Street auction house, said Jason Penny, auction manager and auctioneer. (The most recent big-ticket item was a Louis Tiffany lamp that sold for $14,000 earlier this year, he said.)

The dust jacket's owner is a "very eclectic person," Penny said, declining to reveal more due to privacy and safety concerns. The reserve price, or minimum the lot will be sold for, is also withheld.

The owner bought it from a friend of Picasso's while traveling in London, he said. The book the jacket originally covered was "The Human Comedy," a collection of prints of Picasso's works, published in 1954.

The three drawings are of Picasso's wife, Olga; a flute player and his mistress; and a nude male. Their style - and the Picasso signature with original ink smearing - is quickly recognizable as that of the Spanish painter.

"When he first called me, I about jumped up and down when I got off the phone," said Penny, adding the sale will be the highest-priced of his auctioneering career.

Penny believes the owner chose Bloomington Auction Gallery to sell the drawings because it won't charge as much for the sale as, say, a larger house the size of Sotheby's.

"As long as it's marketed correctly, it can snag the same price like it would at Sotheby's," he said.

That marketing includes an online bidding process that's already under way and continues throughout the live auction. The gallery is already fielding questions from possible buyers, he said, and expects visitors soon.

"If you're gonna spend $80,000, people are gonna want to see it first," Penny said.

While the market for more valuable Picasso paintings is often hit with fraudulent work, the fact that these are drawings on a book for a friend means the gallery "has no reason to believe this would be fraudulent," he said.

The annual day-after-Thanksgiving auction has been going on for about 30 years at the gallery, Penny said. The crowd, typically about 250, is usually split half-and-half between dealers looking to make money and regular people looking to make a "nice purchase" for personal use, he said.

"With the economy the way it is, normal people can afford things from us," Penny said. "That's the exact opposite of what people would expect."

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GO!

What: Annual day-after-Thanksgiving estate auction.

Where: Bloomington Auction Gallery, 300 E. Grove St.

When: 5:30 p.m. Nov. 27 (preview at 4 p.m.)

More info: 309-828-5533

Details: About 380 lots, plus catering from Avanti's. The Picasso drawings are Lot 94, meaning they'll likely be sold during the auction's first hour.