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1947 best-picture Oscar sells for nearly $500,000 at auction

Posted at 8:26 PM, Dec 14, 2018
and last updated 2018-12-14 20:26:47-05

LOS ANGELES (AP) — One Academy Award trophy sold for nearly $500,000 and the second for well over $200,000 in a rare auction of Oscars in Los Angeles.

Auction house Profiles in History announced the results Friday after four days of bidding.

A best-picture Oscar for “Gentleman’s Agreement,” the 1947 film starring Gregory Peck that took on anti-Semitism, sold for $492,000. A best picture statuette for 1935’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” fetched $240,000.

Both were outpaced by a Wizard of Oz production document that brought in $1.2 million.

The buyers of all three items chose to remain anonymous.

Oscar statuettes are rarely sold because the academy maintains that they should be earned not bought, and those awarded since 1951 must be offered back to the academy for $1 before going up for sale.