The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has reached an agreement with an auction house that sold an Oscar awarded in the 1940s. The Academy will buy back the award... for only $10.
Back in June 2014, a Rhode Island auction house sold Joseph C. Wright’s 1942 Oscar for Best Color Art Direction for the Rita Hayworth musical My Gal Sal for $79,200 to another auction house, Nate D. Sanders. AMPAS sued the Rhode Island auction house.
Then, AMPAS began talks with Nate D. Sanders to buy back the Oscar. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer finally approved their agreement this week, reports The Associated Press.
In 1951, AMPAS instituted a rule that Oscar winners and their heirs can only sell Oscar statuettes if the academy is allowed to first offer $10. According to the settlement, Nate D. Sanders did know about the 1951 rule.
“The 'Oscar' is perhaps the world's most distinctive and prestigious award for achievement in the arts," the academy's attorney, Gary E. Gans, said in a statement. "This case established that the academy can maintain the dignity and value of such an award by keeping it from becoming a commodity."
Wright also won an Oscar for 1942’s This Above All. He died in 1985.