15 Oscar statuettes sell for record $3 million in auction

LOS ANGELES - Reuters

Jean Dujardin and Meryl Streep pose at the 84th Oscar awards on Feb 26. Los Angeles-based auction house Nate D. Sanders sold 15 Oscar statuettes for $3 million.

Fifteen Oscar statuettes have sold for a total of $3 million at an online auction, the most money made from a single collection of Oscars in a sale by bid , organizers said on Feb. 29. 

Los Angeles auctioneer Nate D. Sanders said the hot seller of the collection was Herman Mankiewicz’s statuette for best screenplay, which he won for co-writing the 1941 film “Citizen Kane” with Orson Welles. The Oscar sold for $588,455. 

Welles’ own best screenplay Oscar for the movie, which both the American and British film institutes list as the best picture ever made, fetched $861,542 at an earlier Sanders auction in December. 

“People continue to be drawn to the magic of the movies and were extremely enthusiastic bidding on the Oscars, which accounted for the high demand and sales prices,” Sanders said in a statement. 

Other statuettes that pulled in high sums included the 1933 best picture award for the drama “Cavalcade,” which brought in $332,165, while the oldest statuette in the collection, the 1931 best picture award for “Skippy,” netted the third highest total. It sold for $301,973. 

An Oscar given to Charles Coburn in 1943 for best supporting actor in “The More the Merrier” held special significance as the first statuette ever awarded in the best supporting actor category. It went for $170,459. Prior to 1943, winners of the best supporting actor category received awards mounted on plaques. 

The identities of the main buyers at the auction were not revealed. The $3 million generated by the auction was the most ever made for a sale by bid of Oscars.