TWO Academy Awards for best picture are going up for sale in a rare auction of Oscars.
Auction house Profiles In History has announced on Monday that an Oscar awarded to Mutiny On The Bounty in 1936 and another given to Gentleman’s Agreement in 1948 will go up for auction in Los Angeles starting on December 11.
The Mutiny On The Bounty best-picture statuette is expected to go for $200,000-300,000.
Frank Capra presented the award to Irving Thalberg at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles when the Academy Awards were less than 10 years old.
The award is being put up for sale for the first time by the family of Thalberg, an essential figure in the early history of Hollywood.
The best-picture Oscar for Gentleman’s Agreement, the 1947 film starring Gregory Peck that took on anti-Semitism and won three Academy Awards, is expected to fetch between $150,000-200,000 dollars.
Hans Dreier’s art-direction Oscar for 1950’s Sunset Boulevard and Gloria Swanson’s Golden Globe for best actress in a drama are also on offer in the December auction along with other historic movie awards.
Auctions of Oscar statuettes are very uncommon because winners from 1951 onward have had to agree that they or their heirs must offer to sell it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for one dollar before selling it to anyone else.
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