For people in the film industry, winning an Oscar isn’t just seen as an honor, but as a surefire way to boost one’s career. Even though there are many stories surrounding Academy Award curses, taking home a trophy for Best or Outstanding something frequently translates into bigger financial compensation for the recipients, at least when it comes to the Big Five categories. According to Business Insider, agents and managers estimate a 20% boost on an actor’s paycheck after they win an Academy Award. And that’s not to mention the financial benefits of having the words “Academy Award Winner” in a movie poster. However, when it comes to the golden statuette per se, there isn’t that much money to be made from having an Oscar at home. In reality, if an Oscar winner ever tries to sell their award, they will most likely earn nothing but a single dollar. Oh, and the buyer will most likely be the Academy itself.
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When push comes to shove, Oscar winners don’t actually own their Oscars. In a way, they merely borrow the awards from the Academy for an indeterminate amount of time. Ever since 1951, those lucky few that manage to win their much-coveted trophy from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science are completely forbidden from selling it to third parties, at least not without first offering it to the Academy for the sum of $1. They are also barred from disposing of the Oscar in any other way, whether throwing it in the trash or donating it to charity. The rule, which is written in the Academy’s regulations, also applies to a winner’s heirs. But how and why did the Academy decide to limit the material rights of Oscar recipients when it comes to their awards? What did the Oscar trade look like in the days before 1951? And, most importantly, can you still legally buy an Oscar?

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The Academy Introduced a No-Sell Oscar Rule to Its Regulations in 1950

Image via ABC

Well, the how and why of the matter is actually quite simple. In 1950, in order to avoid the award from losing its prestige, the Academy introduced a no-sell rule to its book of regulations. Before actually taking home the award, recipients have to sign a contract that obligates them to offer their trophies back to the Academy for the sum of $1 prior to trying to sell or otherwise dispose of them. The same goes for “the heirs and assigns of Academy Award winners who may acquire a statuette by gift or bequest.”

The rule, however, only applies to Oscars that were given out from 1951 onwards. Thus, those that have money to spare and are on the lookout for an Oscar might still get lucky: many pre-1951 awards have been bought and sold legally in recent years. A famous case is that of Harold Russell, the only actor to ever win two Oscars at the same ceremony for the same role. In 1992, Russell sold the Best Actor in a Supporting Role trophy that he won in 1947 for his role in The Beast Years of Our Lives for $60,500. The story goes that he needed the money to pay for his wife’s medical expenses. Russell kept the honorary award he received for being an inspiration to World War II veterans. Following his death, in 2002, it was revealed that the buyer was producer Lew Wasserman, who returned the statuette to the Academy.

Is There Still a Market for Old-Time Oscars?

Image via RKO

But, according to The Guardian, the modern Oscar trade kicked off for real in 1993, when Vivien Leigh’s 1939 Best Actress award for Gone With the Wind went up for sale for $563,000. In 1999, Michael Jackson bought the movie’s Best Picture trophy for $1.54 million. The statuette went missing in 2016. Considered by many Hollywood’s most timeless love story, Casablanca’s Oscar for Best Directing, awarded to Michael Curtiz, is currently in the possession of David Copperfield. The magician bought the 1943 award in 2003, for $232,000. He reportedly keeps the trophy in his bedroom as a source of inspiration.

In 2011, Citizen Kane’s Best Screenplay Oscar, won by Herman Mankiewicz, was auctioned for $861,542. According to the Reuters news agency, the award had been put up for auction previously, in 2007, but failed to meet its reserve price. The trophy comes with a kind of peculiar story: after being reported missing by Orson Welles’ daughter, Beatrice, in 1988, it reemerged in a 1994 auction. The seller was a cinematographer that claimed Welles had given him the trophy as payment for a job. Beatrice sued and got the statuette back, but was in turn sued by the Academy when she tried to auction it herself in 2003. Since Citizen Kane was awarded its Oscar prior to 1950, in 1942, Beatrice won the lawsuit, and the trophy went on sale. The heirs of silent movie star Mary Pickford didn’t have the same luck as Welles’ daughter when they tried to sell her Best Actress Oscar for the 1929 movie Coquette, alongside an honorary award she received in 1976. Like Beatrice, they were taken to court by the Academy, who successfully argued that the contract Pickford signed in the ’70s covered both statuettes.

There have also been cases of industry members, apart from Wasserman, who have bought Oscars on the auction market just to give them back to the Academy. In 2011, Steven Spielberg bought Bette Davis’ 1938 Best Actress Oscar for Jezebel for $578,000 and returned it to its original owner. Fifteen years prior, he did the same with Clark Gable’s 1935 Best Actor Oscar for It Happened One Night. Kevin Spacey also returned to the Academy the 1945 award received by George Stoll for his work in the score of Anchors Aweigh.

Speaking with The Guardian, auctioneer and appraisal expert Caroline Ashleigh estimates that about 150 Oscars have been put on the market either openly or secretly over the years. In 2012, a collection of 12 Golden-era Oscars were sold for $3 million to an undisclosed buyer. The trade is still going strong: in July 2022, Heritage Auctions sold the Best Cinematography trophy won by Clyde De Vinna for the 1928 movie White Shadows in the South Seas for $228,000. Once more, the name of the buyer has been kept secret.