A Welles Rarity Up for Auction

[mido505]

PROFILES IN HISTORY is an esteemed Hollywood memorabilia auction house. On the week end of October 17-19, they are auctioning off a massive cache of memorabilia that they say may be the largest since the notorious 1970 MGM auction. I was leafing through the beautiful catalogue, available online, and ran across this interesting item: the jacket worn by Orson Welles in the iconic poster of Charles Foster Kane that forms the backdrop to Kane's rousing political speech, given just before Boss Jim Gettys tries to blackmail him out of the race. The asking bid is $60-80,000, so it looks as if Welles memorabilia can still command top dollar. The whole catalogue is worth a look; there's some other, lesser Welles stuff in there, as well as a hoard of breathtaking items reaching back to the silent era. Check it out here: https://www.profilesinhistory.com/auctions/hollywood-auction-65/

[Roger Ryan]

Actually, I believe that KANE jacket was put up for auction about five or six years ago...and had to be withdrawn since no acceptable bids were forthcoming. Will be interesting to see if it sells in October.

EDIT: Well, I see that the jacket is noted as being "newly discovered" in the Western Costume Company archives. Perhaps the jacket I'm thinking of was a dinner jacket seen elsewhere in the film.

[mido505]

Welles's KANE Oscar was put up for auction by the Dax Foundation in 2007 and withdrawn when the reserve price was not met. The statuette netted $861,542.00 when it went back on the block in 2011.

A three piece suit worn by Welles in KANE was sold by Profiles in History at the end of last year for $132,000.00, a substantial premium over the pre-auction estimate of $60-80,000.00. At the time Wellesnet felt the sale was important enough to do an entire post on it: http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=8658

In 2003, at the same auction from which the Oscar was pulled, Christie's of London sold a tail coat worn by Welles in KANE for $9,560.00, which was at the high end of the expected $8-10,000.00. I believe this jacket ended up in the famed Pugliese Collection, which went on the block in 2008, where it fetched $27,000.00. The story behind that auction is worthy of Welles, and Kane: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/17/kennedy.usa

Debbie Reynolds auctioned a fur jacket from KANE, along with the rest of her extensive collection of memorabilia, in May of this year, although I can't find a price.

From my cursory inspection of the catalogue, after the motorcycle from EASY RIDER, the KANE jacket has the highest expected price in the auction. To paraphrase Orson's prediction to Peter Bogdanovich, oh how they love him when he's dead.

[Roger Ryan]

Thanks for some hard facts, mido505; I was obviously just going off the vagaries of memory.

[mido505]

It's interesting information, and a very interesting world, that of Hollywood memorabilia. Who would have guessed that Debbie Reynolds once possessed such an extensive and beautiful collection? It's nice to see that Welles's stuff commands top dollar. There are some very serious items up for grabs in that auction, and very little comes close to what is expected for the KANE jacket.