The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences loathes the auctioning of
Oscars, believing it lessens the prestige of the prize. After an
online sale in February of 15 statuettes raised $3m, the Academy issued
a statement saying: “Oscars should be won, not purchased,” adding that
it had no “legal means of stopping the commoditisation of these particular
statuettes.”
The Academy can stop the sale of trophies awarded after 1950, because that
year organisers made winners sign a legal agreement stating that should they
wish to sell their statuettes, they must first offer them back to the
Academy, for $1.
Last December, Nate D. Sanders sold Orson Welles’ Oscar for his screenplay of
Citizen Kane for $861,000, and in 1999 the best picture Oscar for Gone
With the Wind was bought by singer Michael Jackson for a record $1.54
million.
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