“Rosebud” Sled From Citizen Kane Sells for $14.75 Million—Becomes Second Most Valuable Movie Prop Ever Auctioned
On July 16, Heritage Auctions sold the iconic Rosebud sled from Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane for an astonishing $14.75 million, including buyer’s premium—making it the second most valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever sold, just behind the $32.5 million Wizard of Oz Ruby Slippers.
The sled had belonged to Gremlins director Joe Dante since 1984. Prior sales of screen-used Rosebud sleds include Steven Spielberg’s 1982 purchase for $60,500 and a 1996 sale to an anonymous buyer for $233,000.
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“Rosebud”: The Last Whisper of a Titan — and the Prop That Outlived Him
By now, the word Rosebud is more than just a name stenciled on a child’s sled. It’s the holy grail of movie symbolism, the key to unlocking the soul of Charles Foster Kane—and, depending on who you ask, the last punchline of cinema’s greatest inside joke. And now, 83 years after it first appeared on screen in Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane, a long-lost Rosebud sled is on the block.
Currently sitting pretty with a $250,000 bid ($312,500 with the buyer’s premiums), this sled isn’t just a piece of painted pine. That’s a lot of snow money for a pine plank with a paint job, but we’re not talking about any sled. We’re talking about the sled. The final MacGuffin of MacGuffins. The one that launched a thousand film school theses – and this story. It’s a splintered slice of movie history, rescued from oblivion by director Joe Dante—yes, Gremlins Joe Dante—while filming on what was once the old RKO lot.
Let’s rewind.
“I Was Just Cleaning Out the Shed…”
In 1984, Joe Dante was working on Explorers on the Paramount lot once belonging to RKO when a crew member, perhaps unaware he was holding the cinematic equivalent of the Holy Shroud of Turin, casually offered him an old sled headed for the trash heap – mimicking the movie.
Dante, whose childhood film brain was clearly firing on all cylinders, took one look at the red-painted plank and knew: this was no ordinary toy. He wasn’t wrong and he saved Rosebud from Dante’s inferno!
Radiocarbon dating places the wood firmly in pre-nuclear bomb America. Microscopic wood identification matched it to the pine used in the Bauer sled.
And the paint—those charming, clunky rose decals and pinstriped runners—matches both the Spielberg sled and the Bauer prize. One detail that seals the deal? Nail holes from where the metal rails once were, likely stripped off to feed WWII scrap drives.
Now, this lovingly preserved relic from Dante’s private collection is up for grabs through Heritage Auctions, making it the third known surviving Rosebud sled.
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Citizen Kane: The Film That Changed Everything (Except the Box Office)
If you’ve never seen Citizen Kane, first, shame on you. Second, don’t worry—you still know it. From Welles’ shadow-drenched cinematography to the fake newsreels and the bold non-linear timeline, Kane laid the groundwork for every serious film student’s first heartbreak. And first term paper.
Citizen Kane, released in 1941 by RKO Pictures, wasn’t just a movie—it was Orson Welles kicking down the doors of narrative structure, cinematography, and ego. At the time, Welles was just 25 years old and apparently had no one around him to say “maybe tone it down?” Thankfully. Because what he gave us was a puzzle box of a movie: a faux-newsreel biopic turned emotional autopsy of a man who had everything… except peace.
The story? A reporter tries to decode the final word of America’s most powerful media baron, Charles Foster Kane. That word is Rosebud. Spoiler alert: By the end, we discover it’s the name of Kane’s childhood sled—the last vestige of innocence before wealth, power, and ego buried the boy forever.
A twist ending? Not really. More like a haunting whisper from the past, telling us everything and nothing. As film critic Roger Ebert once put it, Rosebud isn’t the answer. It’s the question.
Citizen Kane | “Rosebud” Clip | Warner Bros. Entertainment
The scene where Citizen Kane utters his final word … “Rosebud” … don’t worry about the continuity problem of there being no-one in the room to hear it. The scene features Agnes Moorehead as Charles Foster Kane’s mother, Harry Shannon as Kane’s father Jim Kane, and George Coulouris as Walter Parks Thatcher, a banker who becomes Kane’s legal guardian.
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The Rosebud Sleds: Spielberg, Bauer, Dante & Mankiewicz sleds
Two types of sleds were made for Citizen Kane, two robust pinewood and three made from light balsa wood. The pinewood sled seen early in the film was won by 12-year-old Arthur Bauer in 1941 and sold in December 1996 at Christies’s auction for $233,500 to an unidentified bidder. The other, known as the Dante Rosebud, is on offer at Heritage Auctions.
Orson Welles confirmed that three balsa wood sleds were commissioned to burn at the fiery finale of the film. Of the three balsa sleds, only two sleds were used for the incineration sequence. Lightweight balsa was chosen to burn quickly on camera.
Spielberg’s Rosebud
Director Steven Spielberg purchased the surviving balsa sled for $60,500 at Christie’s in June 1982, proving once again that when it comes to preserving cinema’s sacred objects, the man’s got taste (and timing).
The sled had been owned by John Hall, RKO’s chief archivist, who had bought it from a studio watchman. The watchman had found it in a trash heap outside the prop vault in the old RKO studios in Hollywood.
“There were three made to burn at the end. Welles directed all the insert photography and Welles was happy with the second sled they burned, and so the third sled was not needed, and that was put in storage at RKO, and I purchased the sled at a Sotheby’s auction in the mid-80s,” Spielberg said.
“It’s going to be at the Academy Museum eventually – the new Academy Museum. It’s in my office right now and it’s been there for years and years, ever since I purchased it. It was at home for a while and then it was in my office. But I think it really belongs in a museum so everybody can see it,” Spielberg said.
True to his word, Spielberg donated the “Rosebud” sled to the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and it’s Citizen Kane exhibition.
The Arthur Bauer “Rosebud” sled
Then there’s the Bauer sled, the practical pine model used during young Kane’s snowy scene of lost innocence, pictured here.
Retired helicopter pilot Arthur Bauer had owned the sled for over 50 years, ever since he won it in a 1942 RKO Pictures publicity competition. At the time, Bauer was a 12-year-old film fanatic given the rare chance to choose his own prize from the studio. His pick? Rosebud.
“…I was told I could pick from a list of prizes, and I chose the ROSEBUD sled used in Citizen Kane,” Arthur Bauer recalled.
He received the sled from RKO actress Bonita Granville in the New York office of Will Hays—the same Will Hays whose infamous censorship code had loomed over Welles throughout the production of Citizen Kane. Bauer had to rescue Rosebud from his mother who wanted to paint it and use it as a plant stand, before selling it in 1996 via Christie’s for $233,500 to an unidentified buyer.
Dante’s “Rosebud” Lost Sled
And now, 26 days out from auction’s end, Dante’s pine version—the so-called Lost Sled—is back from storage limbo to haunt us anew. Complete with original rope for hanging, paint splatters, and cracks that echo its twin, it’s a time capsule of childhood, storytelling, and Hollywood’s golden ghost.
Herman Mankiewicz’s “Rosebud” sled
There’s also a fourth Rosebud in the wild—though this one never made it to the screen. At the end of Citizen Kane’s principal photography, Orson Welles gifted screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz a sled, not as a prop, but as a nod to the story they’d crafted together which won the 1941 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Unlike the others, Mankiewicz’s “Rosebud” sled wasn’t built for the film at all—it’s an authentic 1840s sled with a distinctly different design. Mankiewicz kept it for decades as a personal memento. In 2015, it slid into the spotlight at Bonhams, fetching $149,000 at auction.
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Who Will Bid for Lost Innocence?
The question now is: who’s willing to put down over a quarter-million dollars for 35 inches of existential dread dressed up as a toboggan?
Collectors of Hollywood lore? Spielberg again, doubling down? A streaming platform exec looking to score cool points? Or maybe just someone who wants to whisper “Rosebud” dramatically to guests while pointing at a sled mounted over the fireplace.
In any case, this prop is far more than a painted plaything—it’s a metonym for the soul of Citizen Kane itself. In a world of superheroes, reboots, and CGI overload, the quiet poignancy of Rosebud still cuts through. Because it reminds us all: no matter how rich, how powerful, or how loudly we yell over broken snow globes, there’s always a moment in childhood when the world slipped away—and we’ve been trying to get back on that sled ever since.
You can view and bid on the auction here: Citizen Kane (RKO, 1941), Charles Foster Kane’s Practical Riding “Rosebud” Sled – Heritage Auctions
Why “Rosebud” Still Matters
“Rosebud” isn’t just a sled. It’s a symbol so potent, so distilled, it became the gold standard of final words. It’s referenced everywhere from The Simpsons to The Sopranos. It stands in for every unsaid thing, every secret regret, every moment that got away.
Citizen Kane taught us that great power doesn’t necessarily equal great fulfillment. And Rosebud taught us that maybe, just maybe, the small things—the sleds, the snow globes, the childhoods before capitalism came calling—are what truly matter.
Now that third sled, “The Lost Rosebud,” could end up in your living room. Assuming, of course, you’ve got the cash. And perhaps a small room to recreate a mini-Xanadu, with a snow globe for full effect.
So go ahead, place your bid. Own a piece of cinema. But remember: just like Kane, even if you win Rosebud, you’ll still have to figure out what it means.
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