Ruby Slippers from The Wizard of Oz Fetch $28 Million at Auction

The iconic ruby red slippers, famously worn by actress Judy Garland in the classic film The Wizard of Oz, achieved a sale price of $28m (£22m) at an auction held in the United States on Saturday. These renowned sequined pumps, one of only four known pairs to have survived from the movie’s production, had previously been stolen from a museum in Minnesota. Online bidding commenced a month prior to the sale. Heritage Auctions had projected the slippers would realize up to $3m (£2.35m) at the auction, a figure that proved to be an under-estimate by $25m (£20m). The auction house described the footwear as the “Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia” and noted that their final selling price established them as the most valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever sold at auction. The successful bid was met with applause within the Dallas auction room. This sale occurred amidst a resurgence of interest in the musical, spurred by the recent debut of the prequel film Wicked. Judy Garland was merely 16 years old when she portrayed Dorothy in the iconic 1939 musical, The Wizard of Oz. The media publication Variety placed the film second on its initial compilation of “100 Greatest Movies of All Time.” This cinematic work is a musical adaptation of L Frank Baum’s children’s book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900. Although the magical slippers in the original book were silver, the film’s producers opted to change their color to red to capitalize on the then-new Technicolor technology. Both in the movie and the literary source, a crucial scene unfolds where Dorothy is required to click her heels three times while uttering “There’s no place like home” to depart the enchanted land of Oz and go back to Kansas and her Auntie Em. Although multiple pairs of shoes were utilized by Garland throughout the filming process, only four are confirmed to still exist. One such pair is currently displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. However, the specific pair offered at auction possesses its own distinct background. In 2005, collector Michael Shaw had lent the slippers to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Garland’s hometown, when they were stolen. Professional thief Terry Jon Martin employed a hammer to break the glass display case and seize the slippers, under the impression that their insured value of $1m indicated they were adorned with genuine gemstones. Nevertheless, upon presenting them to a “fence”—an intermediary specializing in selling stolen items to discreet purchasers—he realized they were merely glass. Consequently, he passed the shoes on to another individual. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) eventually recovered the shoes in 2018 through a sting operation. The whereabouts of the slippers during the intervening 13 years remain undisclosed. In 2023, Martin, then in his 70s and utilizing a wheelchair, admitted guilt to the theft and received a sentence of time served. “There’s some closure, and we do know definitely that Terry Jon Martin did break into our museum, but I’d like to know what happened to them after he let them go,” John Kelsch, the curator of the Judy Garland Museum, informed CBS News Minnesota in 2023. He further commented, “Just to do it because he thought they were real rubies and to turn them over to a jewelry fence. I mean, the value is not rubies. The value is an American treasure, a national treasure. To steal them without knowing that seems ludicrous.” Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC bears no responsibility for the content found on external websites. Information regarding our policy on external linking is available.