Oscar statues make debut in NYC

As the countdown to the award show of the season gets underway, newly minted Oscar statues that will be presented to the winners of the 78th Academy Awards are on display in New York's Times Square.

The 50 little gold men are in New York for the first time ever, explained Randy Haberkamp, the Director of Special Projects for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

"We had done a previous exhibition in Los Angeles and it was kind of an afterthought we thought lets see what happens and in eight days we had 17,000 people show up and we were very surprised and everybody seemed to really have a good time with it," said Haberkamp. "So we thought let's give New York a shot and when we found out this Times Square window was going to be available to us we thought that's perfect, that's where Oscar belongs, so let's have him make a stop."

The statue depicts a knight holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. Each spoke signifies the original branches of the Academy, actors, writers, directors, producers and technicians.

"The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences," is engraved on the bottom of each statue but no other engravings are on the Oscars just yet.

"We don't know who the winners are and so therefore we can't engrave them. The only one we do know is Robert Altman's getting an honorary. So, his is being engraved right now and will be engraved when he gets it on the stage. But everybody else will get a blank Oscar, one of these guys. And they can either bring it to us and have it engraved or they can take it home and we'll send them a plaque if they don't want to let go of it."

As for how much an Oscar is valued at, Haberkamp says they are priceless. One statue did hit the market some years ago, but was later purchased and returned to the Academy. Haberkamp says that the Academy has taken precautions to avoid the statues from being sold on Internet auction sites -- stars are obligated to sign a contract in which they agree not to sell their Oscars.

The statues are made out of britannium, a pewter like alloy which is then covered in gold plate. Each weighs 8.5 pounds stands 13.5 inches tall.

Each Oscar statue is produced over 20 hours in a factory in Chicago and costs about 400 US dollars to make. The statues must meet strict standards or they are immediately melted down.

The statuettes will board a plane headed for Los Angeles on February 2nd.

They will be handed out at the 78th Academy Awards on March 5th, at the Kodak Theater.