A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” and later stolen from a museum were sold at auction for a whopping $28 million.
Bidding for the slippers reached a fever pitch Saturday afternoon and skyrocketed past the auction house estimate of $3 million. The identity of the winning bidder was not publicized.
Heritage Auctions, based in Dallas, handled the sale for collector Michael Shaw, who owned the slippers. After fees, the winning bidder will pay $32.5 million for the 85-year-old shoes.
Garland wore numerous pairs of slippers while starring as Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” in 1939 but only four pairs are known to still exist.
The pair sold Saturday had been loaned by Shaw to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn., until 2005 when they were stolen. Their fate remained a mystery until 2018 when the FBI recovered them in a sting operation.
However the theft itself went unsolved until May 2023, when former mobster Terry Jon Martin — who was 76 at the time — was indicted. In October 2023, Martin pleaded guilty in the case and admitted that he used a small hammer to smash the case holding the slippers. He told the court he thought the rubies were real and discarded the slippers when he learned they weren’t.
At the time of his plea, Martin was in hospice care and required constant oxygen for treatment of COPD. He was expected to only live six more months and all parties agreed that he should spend no time in jail. However he has lived through the year.
The auction set a new record for a piece of entertainment memorabilia, according to Heritage Auctions. The previous record was $5.52 million for the white dress Marilyn Monroe once wore above a windy subway grate.
The Judy Garland Museum said it bid in an attempt to reacquire the slippers but didn’t have the funds to keep up with the unexpectedly high prices.
With News Wire Services
