The city of Minneapolis Judy Garland’s famous ruby shoes from The Wizard of Oz, which were taken from a museum over twenty years ago, brought $28 million at auction on Saturday.
Within minutes, the frantic bidding greatly exceeded Heritage Auctions’ expectation that they would bring in at least $3 million. Up until the grand total was reached, a few bidders made last-minute phone bids.
Prior to the start of live bidding late Saturday afternoon, the online auction, which started last month, was valued at $1.55 million.
In 2005, Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s display case and door when these shoes were on show at the Judy Garland Museum in her birthplace of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
Until the FBI retrieved them in 2018, their whereabouts were unknown. Martin, who is currently 77 years old and resides in northern Minnesota close to Grand Rapids, was not made public as the thief until he was charged in May 2023. There, in October 2023, he entered a guilty plea. Due to his bad health, he was sentenced to time served last January while in a wheelchair and using supplemental oxygen.
Martin had a lengthy history of burglaries and receiving stolen property, and his lawyer, Dane DeKrey, explained prior to sentencing that he was trying to pull off one last score after an old associate with mob connections informed him that the shoes needed to be embellished with genuine jewels to support their $1 million insured value. However, a fence buyer who purchases stolen goods later informed him that the rubies were merely glass, according to DeKrey. Martin then threw the slippers away. The lawyer did not say how.
In March, the suspected fence, Jerry Hal Saliterman, 77, of the Crystal suburb of Minneapolis, was charged. When he appeared in court for the first time, he was also on oxygen and in a wheelchair. Although his lawyer has stated that he is not guilty, he has not made a plea and is set to stand trial in January.
After being loaned to the museum, the shoes were returned to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw in February. Only four pairs are known to have survived, though Garland wore numerous pairs during the filming. In the film, Dorothy had to click her heels three times and say, “There’s no place like home,” in order to get back to Kansas from Oz.
The sequined shoes from the well-known 1939 musical have seen more changes than the Yellow Brick Road, according to Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers of Oz.
According to Robert Wilonsky, a vice president at the Dallas-based auction firm, more than 800 people had been following the slippers, and by Thursday, the company’s webpage for the sale had received close to 43,000 page views.
The previous record for a piece of entertainment memorabilia was $5.52 million for the white frock Marilyn Monroe famously wore atop a windswept subway grate, the auctioneer informed bidders and viewers in the room and live after the slippers sold.
Other Wizard of Oz memorabilia, including a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who portrayed the first Wicked Witch of the West, was also up for auction. The price of that item was $2.4 million.
The release of Wicked, a film adaptation of the Broadway blockbuster musical and a type of prequel that reimagines the figure of the Wicked Witch of the West, has brought new attention to the Wizard of Oz story in recent weeks.
Written by Associated Press’s Steve Karnowski
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