A pair of the iconic ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” fetched a winning bid of $28 million at auction Saturday. The sales price far outstripped Heritage Auctions estimates that the shoes would sell for around $3 million.
The bidding for the fabled shoes far outpaced the initially estimated amount within seconds of the auction’s start, and tripled within minutes, according to the Associated Press. A bidding war went on for 15 minutes before the gavel came down on the shoes’ sale.
Including the auction house’s fee, the unknown buyer will pay $32.5 million. The online bidding that opened last month stood at $1.5 million before Saturday’s live bidding.
The slippers were formerly on display at the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. But in 2005, a thief used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case and nabbed the shoes.
The shoes remained hidden until the FBI recovered them in 2018. The thief, Terry Jon Martin, was indicted in May 2023 and pled guilty in October 2023. He was sentenced to time served because of his poor health. His attorney told the court the longtime thief was looking for “one last score” and believed the shoes had real jewels embedded.
A man identified as the fence for the stolen shoes is scheduled to go on trial in January.
The ruby slippers are one of several pairs Garland wore during filming. Only four pairs are known to have survived. The shoes played a key part in the film, as Dorothy (played by Garland) had to click her heels three times to return from Oz to her Kansas farm while repeating, “There’s no place like home.”
After today’s slippers auction, a Heritage auctioneer said that the previous record for a piece of entertainment memorabilia was $5.52 million, the price for the white dress Marilyn Monroe famously wore atop a subway grate.
The Saturday auction also included other memorabilia from “The Wizard of Oz,” including a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who played the original Wicked Witch of the West. That item went for $2.4 million, or a total final cost to the buyer of $2.93 million.
