The last time that the Academy Award Michael Curtiz won in 1943 for directing “Casablanca” came up for auction, it sold for $231,000. That was in 2003, and in the years since the market for Academy Awards has soared. This time around, it may take a record $2.5m-$3.5m to win the Oscar, which Los Angeles based Nate D. Sanders is offering in an online sale ending June 28.
The Oscar was one of three won by “Casablanca,” number two on the American Film Institute’s list of the best pictures of all time. The award carries an engraved plate that reads, “Academy First Award/To/Michael Curtiz/For The Direction of/ “Casablanca”. Although magician David Copperfield was the buyer of the Academy Award in 2003, Nate Sanders released no information about the present seller. The current record for an Oscar is the $1.5m that Michael Jackson paid at auction for David O. Selznick’s best picture Academy Award for “Gone With the Wind.”
