A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” has been on the auction block for nearly two decades after a thief stole the iconic shoesconvinced that they were decorated with real jewels.
Online bidding has begun and will continue through Dec. 7, Heritage Auctions in Dallas announced in a news release Monday.
The auction company received the sequined and beaded slippers from Michael Shaw, the memorabilia collector who originally owned the shoes at the center of the beloved 1939 musical. Shaw had loaned the shoes in 2005 to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota .
That summer someone broke a display case and stole the slippers. Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018.
“It’s become a notorious thing for us,” said Janie Heitz, executive director of the Judy Garland Museum. “We will forever be known as a place where the ruby slippers were stolen, which has a lot of bad consequences, but can also have good consequences because it put us on the map.”
Now the museum is among those vying for the slippersone of many pairs Garland wore during filming. There are only four left.
Grand Rapids raised money for the slippers during the annual Judy Garland Festival. The resources will be replenished the $100,000 Minnesota lawmakers set aside this year to buy the slippers.
At the time they were stolen, the shoes were insured for $1 million. Now they will go to auction in December for an estimated value of $3.5 million or more.
The man who stole the slippers, Terry Jon Martin, was 76 when he was sentenced to prison in January due to his ill health. He admitted to using a hammer to break the glass of the museum door and the display case. According to his lawyer, this was an attempt to… get “one last score” after a longtime associate with mafia connections told him the shoes needed to be adorned with real jewelry to justify their $1 million insured value.
The movie memorabilia auction includes other items from “The Wizard of Oz,” such as a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West and the screen door from Dorothy’s home in Kansas.
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