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Originally referred to as the Academy Award of Merit, then simply the Academy Award and finally officially dubbed the Oscar® by the Academy in 1939, the 12 1/2 inch statue is one of the film industry's highly coveted prizes. Cedric Gibbons, an art director, and one of the 36 founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, first conceived the majestic image of a knight plunging his sword into a reel of film. He sketched the image and then handed his design off to George Stanley to create a model out of clay and hand-cast it in bronze for $500.

Over the years, statue has remained relatively unchanged, except for the reel of film at the base, the original five spokes representing the branches within the industry have been updated to reflect the current number of branches today, 13. No longer made out of solid bronze, the Oscar® is now composed of a gold-plated brittanium (a metal alloy mostly made of tin) and weighs in at 8 1/2 pounds.