Judy Garland’s Ruby Slippers From ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Just Sold for $28 Million

Judy Garland’s ruby slippers just found a new home.

One of only four remaining pairs of the iconic shoes worn by the actress in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz sold for a staggering $28 million at auction last Saturday. The impressive figure blew past the initial $3 million estimate from Heritage Auctions when online bidding started a month ago. Prior to the live event, the top offer sat at $1.55 million before skyrocketing within minutes once in-person proceedings began. The final bid, which comes to $32.5 million with auction fees, makes the slippers the most expensive movie memorabilia ever sold at auction, according to Heritage.

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This particular pair of ruby slippers has a more sordid past than its prop siblings. The shoes were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn., (the actress’s hometown) when Terry Jon Martin stole them from their case in 2005. The slippers’ whereabouts remained unknown until they were recovered by the FBI in 2018, the Associated Press reports. Upon their rediscovery, the shoes were returned to collector Michael Shaw, who had loaned them to the museum. Shaw then passed the collector’s item on to Heritage Auctions.

“There is simply no comparison between Judy Garland’s ruby slippers and any other piece of Hollywood memorabilia,” Joe Maddalena, Heritage Auctions’s executive vice president, said in a statement. “The breathtaking result reflects just how important movies and movie memorabilia are to our culture and to collectors.”

But the glistening footwear wasn’t the only The Wizard of Oz memorabilia that headed to the auction block this weekend. The famous pointed hat donned by Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, hammered down for a cool $2.4 million.

Of course, with the release of and hype surrounding the recently released Wicked movie, we may see more Ozian items heading to auction soon enough.

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