A pair of ruby red slippers, worn by actress Judy Garland in the classic film The Wizard of Oz, sold for $28 million (£22 million) at a US auction on Saturday.
One of four surviving pairs used in the film, the sequined high-heeled shoes were once stolen from a Minnesota museum.
Online bidding began a month ago, and bidding on the slippers is expected to begin It fetched up to $3 million (£2.35 million) at auction, according to Heritage Auctions. – Estimate is less than $25 million (£20 million).
Auctioneers described the slippers as “Hollywood's Holy Grail memorabilia” and said their sale price made them the most valuable movie memorabilia ever sold at auction.
The winning bid sparked applause at the auction house in Dallas, and the sale coincided with renewed interest in the musical following the recent release of the prequel film, Wicked.
Garland was just 16 years old when she played Dorothy in the classic 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz. Variety magazine ranked it second on its inaugural list of “100 Greatest Films of All Time”.
The film is a musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” While the magic slippers in the book were silver, the film's producers changed them to red to take advantage of the new Technicolor technology.
In the film, as in the book, a pivotal moment occurs when Dorothy must click her heels three times as she repeats “There's no place like home” in order to leave the magical Land of Oz and return to Kansas and her Aunt Em.
While Garland wore several pairs of shoes during filming, only four are known to have survived.
One of the pairs is on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. But this pair up for auction has its own unique history.
Collector Michael Shaw had loaned the slippers to the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, when they were stolen in 2005.
Master thief Terry John Martin used a hammer to smash the glass case and grab the slippers, thinking they must have been worth $1 million insured because they were covered in real gemstones.
But when he took it to “the fence” – a middleman who sold stolen goods to secret buyers – he discovered that it was just glass.
So he gave the shoe to someone else. The FBI only recovered the shoes in 2018 in a sting operation. What happened to them during those 13 years is still unknown.
In 2023, Martin – who was in his 70s and used a wheelchair – pleaded guilty to stealing it and was sentenced to time served.
“There's some closure, and we know for sure that Terry John Martin broke into our museum, but I'd like to know what happened to them after he let them go,” Judy Garland Museum curator John Kelsch said. Minnesota in 2023, he told CBS News.
“He only does it because he thought it was a real ruby and he turns it into a jewelry fence. I mean the value is not a ruby. The value is an American treasure, a national treasure. And to steal it without knowing that seems ridiculous.” “.
