‘Citizen Kane’ suit fetches $110,000 at Dec. 21 auction
A three-piece suit worn by Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in the final scene of “Citizen Kane” sold for $132,000 at a Hollywood memorabilia auction last month, according to representatives for the Calabasas-based Profiles in History auction house.
That amount, which represents the winning bid of $110,000 plus a 20% premium to the auction house, was substantially above the pre-auction estimate of $60,000 to $80,000.
Another item that sold for well above its pre-auction estimate was a black mourning hat worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind.” Expected to sell for between $8,000 to $12,000, it went for $22,500 (before commissions) by the time the final auction gavel came down.
Another “GWTW”-related item, an exhibition copy of the green velvet curtain dress and hat, was snapped up for $30,000 (before comissions) — the low end of the $30,000 to $50,000 estimate — and a jacket and pair of pants that were part of Frank Sinatra’s costume for “Kings Go Forth” sold for a pre-commission $4,500 — just about in the middle of the stated pre-auction estimate of $3,000 to $5,000.
A lot of 14 costumes from “The Sound of Music,” which included a jacket and pants outfit worn by Christopher Plummer’s Capt. Von Trapp in the musical numbers “Edelweiss” and “So Long, Farewell” and two of the capes worn by the Von Trapp children in the “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” number at the end of the film, sold for $150,000 (before commissions), also at the low end of Profiles in History’s pre-auction estimate of $150,000 to $250,000.
According to the “prices realized detail” posted to the auction house’s website, the item that fetched the highest price at that auction was a “non-firing DL-44 blaster” wielded by Harrison Ford’s Han Solo character in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” which bought for $200,000. Add in an additional 20% for the auction house and the final tab for the blaster comes to $240,000.
That’s some serious galactic credits standard, if we do say so ourselves.
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