Back in October we told you that the money being sought for Orson Welles' Oscar for writing "Citizen Kane" was probably too high. After four years of legal wrangling, it was to sold at a Sotheby's auction on December 11 (CLICK HERE to read the details). With the pre-sale estimate upwards of $800,000, the new owner, the Dax Foundation, looked to have struck real gold. But the bidding stalled and the sale was withdrawn when the minimum bid was not met.

With only one Oscar ever having sold for more — the 1939 best picture award for "Gone With The Wind," which was purchased by Michael Jackson for $1.5 million back in 1999 — this estimate was certainly "aggressive," as a noted dealer of showbiz memorabilia biz told us. Perhaps the powers that be at Sotheby's were hoping that Steven Spielberg would be bidding. After all, he did buy the film's iconic Rosebud sleigh for $60,000 in 1982. And he has played angel, buying three acting Oscars — Bette Davis' two and Clark Gable's one — and returning them to the Academy. Only Oscars won before 1950 may be sold legally.

While Gable's only Oscar (for "It Happened One Night") cost Spielberg $607,500 in 1996 and Davis' second (for "Jezebel") set him back $578,000 in 2001, he only had to pay $180,000 for her "Dangerous" Oscar in 2002. And that same year, Ronald Coleman's best actor Oscar for "A Double Life" went for $175,000. This decline in prices was reinforced when the best picture Oscar for "How Green Was My Valley" — the movie that bested "Citizen Kane" in 1941 — went for only $95,600 in 2004.

While cineastes celebrate "Kane" as the greatest American movie ever made, and, no doubt, there would be a certain cachet to owning its only Oscar, this win was for screenwriting. As evidenced by the current labor strife, writers are not overly valued in Hollywood. And, so it would seem, this attitude carries over to the auction world as well.

(Photos: Sotheby's / RKO)