How Much Is an Oscar Really Worth? Breaking Down the Price Tag

Nicole Kidman Reveals How 2003 Oscar Win Changed Her Life

Oscar may be commonly known as a little gold man, but just how golden is he?

First of all, the statues handed out to winners at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the Oscars, is cast in bronze and finished with 24-karat gold plating. All told, factoring in materials and labor, an 8 1/2-pound, 13 1/2-inch tall Oscar statuette costs anywhere from $400 to $1,000 to produce, according to varying estimates pegged to the cost of gold at any given time.

UAP Polich Tallix in New York does the honors, taking about three months to produce 50 statuettes. (Meanwhile, a Golden Globe is said to cost about $800 to make.)

Of course, winning an Oscar is priceless, but still... That's a tidy little haul, right?

And yet, once a person has experienced the moment that can't be quantified with legal tender, due to rules implemented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1951, should an Oscar winner (or his or her heirs) wish to declutter the trophy case, they must first offer the Academy the chance to buy the statue back for $1. 

"Award winners shall not sell or otherwise dispose of the Oscar statuette, nor permit it to be sold or disposed of by operation of law, without first offering to sell it to the Academy for the sum of $1.00," according to the rules detailed on the Academy's website. "This provision shall apply also to the heirs and assigns of Academy Award winners who may acquire a statuette by gift or bequest."

Still, there's the rare loop hole.

In 2004, per Variety, a U.S. District Court judge granted Orson Welles daughter Beatrice Welles the right to sell the Best Original Screenplay Oscar her late father won for 1941's Citizen Kane (which lost the Best Picture race to, er, How Green Was My Valley, whose helmer John Ford was named Best Director), marking the first time the Academy had lost a case trying to prevent an Oscar resale.

According to the report, Beatrice requested a duplicate in 1988 after reporting her father's Oscar lost, and upon receipt she signed the Academy's right-of-first-refusal agreement—which was obviously added to the bylaws 11 years after Welles won. But the original Oscar was found and she managed to get it back, then later successfully argued that it wasn't governed by a rule that came into effect after her dad won it.

But in 2008, per CBS News, a California judge sided with the Academy when it sought to block the resale of Mary Pickford's two Oscars, the first won by the silent screen star in 1930 for Coquette, the other an honorary statue given to the United Artists cofounder in 1975.

But once an Oscar reaches the open market, look out. In 1999, Michael Jackson paid $1.5 million the Best Picture statue given to producer David O. Selznick for 1939's Gone With the Wind. And, according to the Los Angeles Times, Steven Spielberg's three Oscars keep company with two won by Bette Davis ($758,000) and Clark Gable's Best Actor statue for It Happened One Night ($607,500).

So, while it's hard to picture ever wanting to part with your grandpa's Oscar, apparently it happens. See who's going home with a shiny new Oscar from the 98th Academy Awards: