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In what is, we dare to say, the most lucrative sale ever of a prop once used in an episode of Eerie, Indiana, a wooden sled with “Rosebud” painted on it—also used in Explorers, The ‘Burbs, Citizen Kane, and deleted scenes from Gremlins 2: The New Batch—has just been sold at auction for $14.75 million. This makes the sled, per THR, the second-most-expensive piece of movie memoribilia ever to be auctioned off, falling only behind Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard Of Oz—which, as far as we know, never even made it into the DVD extras of Gremlins 2.
But, uh, no, seriously: This was apparently one of the original Citizen Kane sleds, carved from pine and owned, for the last 40 years, by director Joe Dante. (Who, as you may have already surmised, was not shy about sneaking his insanely valuable treasure into some of his various film and TV projects.) Per Intelligent Collector, Dante got the sled through frankly bizarre means: While filming Explorers on the Paramount lot back in the 1980s, Dante was approached by one of the workers who was busy clearing out old storage spaces that had been used by RKO, the studio that produced the Orson Welles classic; would he possibly want to take home this unassuming piece of wood, which was otherwise going to be junked? Dante said, y’know, yes. (The same article notes that collectors previously believed there were only 2 extant Rosebuds in the world, one made of pine, and one of balsa, the latter the survivor of a trio built to be burnt for the film’s famous ending. Steven Spielberg bought the balsa sled in the 1980s, and the pine one—used in the movie’s flashbacks—has been circulating among collectors for years. Carbon-testing and other investigations have shown that Dante’s sled definitely comes from the right time, and features similar-enough artistry to suggest that it might have been created as a back-up if the other pine sled broke.)
Dante has, of course, now sold the sled, for an absolutely massive amount of money that will unfortunately never be able to replicate feelings of love, family, and childhood innocence, although it’ll probably do a pretty fucking good job at trying. The sled was sold to an unknown buyer as part of Heritage Auction’s current movie memoribilia sale; other items up on the block this week include one of Indiana Jones’ bullwhips, an X-Wing from The Empire Strikes Back, and some of the inscribed tablets from The Ten Commandments.
