Where is…Rosebud from Citizen Kane Now?

There were three Rosebuds made to burn at the end of the film. Orson 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 Pictures.

After that…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.

Steven Spielberg bought Rosebud during a Sotheby’s auction in 1982.  He paid $60,500 for the prop sled, beating out other bidders.

Spielberg has now donated the sled to the Academy Museum. The Museum is set to open on December 14, 2020, per their website.

Steven Spielberg: “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 sled

Steven talks about Rosebud starting around 7:12

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

18 thoughts on “Where is…Rosebud from Citizen Kane Now?”

  1. The starting scene of Citizen Kane is cryptic with the mysterious word Rosebud being his last word before he dies and the rest of the movie was a flashback of his life. In the end you find out that Rosebud was a sled from his childhood which is kind of a let down, as it was not all that significant, but a great movie anyway.

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      1. Yeh, I’ve gathered you’ve got a real penchant for that type of memoribilia. It doesn’t get much better than the Rosebud sleigh. Nor do movie endings get much better then the one in CK! I don’t think there has been a better metaphor used in story or indeed film before than what Orsen Welles did in CK. Incredibly powerful.

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  4. Great film clip. Spielberg has given the world so many good movies. To think Citizen Kane may have been the film to inspire him to be a director is satisfying (he didn’t come out and say it, but the movie must have meant something to him.) Really cool one of the sleds survives and is going into a museum; he’s right, these iconic props need to be in museums so all can see them.

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    1. Personally I didn’t think it existed. I thought it burned…I was so happy when I read what Spielberg did. I want to see it one day.
      I love the movie…it could be my favorite movie of all time.
      I do think it inspired him.

      Off Topic… Did you ever see Little Miss Sunshine? If you did and liked it…I just watched Troop Zero…it’s the close to that vibe. I would recommend it.

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      2. Well Citizen Kane is much better! It is worth a watch. It’s based loosely on William Randolph Hearst’s life… It got Orson in all kinds of trouble with the film…
        Little Miss Sunshine is funny.

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      4. No it’s about a little girl who wants to go to a pagent with her disfuntional family…it’s a movie you would not forget.
        Citizen Kane…let me know what you think about it if you don’t mind.

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