Every year, the world of entertainment celebrates the best in film with the pinnacle of accolades, the Oscars.
Receiving a coveted golden Oscars statuette is regarded as one of the highest honours in the film industry, and is fiercely competed for. Since 1951, winners and their heirs have been forbidden from selling their engraved awards unless it has been offered to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the sum of $1 first. However, there have been occasions over the years when pre-1951 Oscars have been auctioned.
In December 2018, a Los Angeles auction of Hollywood memorabilia raised over $8 million, which included the sale of the 1935 Best Picture Oscar for ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’, and the 1947 Best Picture Oscar for ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ starring Hollywood heart-throb, Gregory Peck. The sale of the Oscar statuettes raised $492,000 and $240,000 respectively. Meanwhile in 1999, pop star Michael Jackson reportedly paid $1.5 million for David O. Selznick’s Best Picture Oscar for ‘Gone With the Wind’.
Along with the Oscars, other Hollywood memorabilia included in the Los Angeles Profiles in History auction were an archive of original documents relating to the film ‘The Wizard of Oz’, which fetched a whopping $1.2 million and a ‘Star Wars’ TIE fighter helmet that went for $240,000. As well as this, Marty McFly’s hover-board from ‘Back to the Future II’ reached $102,000, a Star Trek phaser was sold for $192,000, and a ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ Golden Ticket went for $48,000.
