If you can’t win the Oscar, you can buy it. An Oscar for color art direction awarded for the 1942 film “My Gal Sal” sold for $79,200 at auction in Rhode Island late, more than double its high pre-sale estimate. The auctioneer had estimated the golden statuette would sell for $5,000 to $30,000. But several hours before the live auction began, the online bidding had already reached $32,000. Final amount was snapped up by an anonymous telephone bidder from California. The price included the buyer’s premium.
Gold statue was sold by an heir of Joseph C. Wright, who won it for the film that starred Rita Hayworth and Victor Mature. Oscar went to his nephew when he passed in 1985 at the age of 92 when in California. According to the auctioneer it’s in good goodness with a little bit of wear in the back.
“Oscars are quite a rare commodity,” Nanci Thompson, the owner of the auction house, told Reuters. “There just aren’t many around.”
She said there are perhaps less than 200 Oscars that have been sold since the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.
