My Gal Sal Oscar smashes auction estimate

An Oscar won by filmmakers behind Rita Hayworth’s movie musical My Gal Sal has gone under the hammer for $79,200 (£49,500), more than double its auction estimate. An heir of Joseph C. Wright, who won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction – Interior Decoration, Color, handed the gold statuette to Briarbrook Auctions bosses in Rhode Island and they valued it at between $5,000 (£3,125) and $30,000 (£18,750).
The award went up for sale on Monday (23Jun14), when it was snapped up by an anonymous telephone bidder from California.
Auction house owner Nanci Thompson tells Reuters, “Oscars are quite a rare commodity. There just aren’t many around.”
Wright won the prize before executives at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science enforced a rule in 1950, banning winners and their relatives from selling the Oscar.