Including the buyer’s premium — a commission the buyer pays — the slipper sold for a total of $32.5 million, Robert Wilinski, vice president of the Dallas-based auction house, told CBS News in an email.
Heritage Auctions estimated the slippers would fetch $3 million or more. Online bidding opened last month and reached $1.55 million as of Friday, or $1.91 million including the buyer’s premium, Wilinski said. More than 800 people were tracking chappals and company people. Web page for auction About 43,000 pages had been viewed as of Thursday, he said.
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As Rhys Thomas, author of the book, “The Ruby Slippers of Oz,” says, the shoes set in the beloved 1939 musical have seen “more twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road.”
They were on display at the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 2005 when Terry Jon Martin Used a hammer to break museum doors and display case glass.
Steve Karnowski/AP
His whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered him in 2018. Martin, now 77, who lives near Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota, did not come out publicly as a thief until he was indicted in May 2023. Pleaded guilty in October 2023. Martin admitted that he used a small hammer. To enter the museum. He then used the tool to crack open the case containing the slipper and took it. He said he didn’t hear any alarms. He unloaded them in his car and kept them in a trailer next to his house.
He was in a wheelchair and on supplemental oxygen when he was sentenced last January due to his poor health.
His lawyer, Dan Dacre, explained before the sentencing that Martin, who has a long history of burglary and receiving stolen property, was told by an old mob associate to make “one last score”. was trying Adorned with genuine jewelry to justify its $1 million insured value. But a fence — a person who buys stolen goods — later told him the rubies were just glass, Dacre said. So Martin got rid of the slippers. The lawyer did not say how.
The alleged fence, Jerry Hall Salterman, 77, of the Minneapolis suburb of Crystal, was indicted in March. He was also in a wheelchair and on oxygen when he first appeared in court. He is due to go to trial in January and has not entered a plea, although his lawyer has said he is not guilty.
The shoes were returned in February to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw, who loaned them to the museum. They were one of several pairs Garland wore during filming, but only four pairs are known to survive. In the film, to return from Oz to Kansas, Dorothy has to click her heels three times and repeat, “There’s no place like home.”
Among those bids was the Judy Garland Museum. The city of Grand Rapids raised money for the slippers at its annual Judy Garland Festival to supplement the $100,000 set aside by Minnesota lawmakers this year to help purchase the slippers.
The story of “The Wizard of Oz” has received renewed attention in recent weeks with the release of the film.Wicked“An adaptation of the megahit Broadway musical, a prequel of sorts that reimagines the character of the Wicked Witch of the West.
The auction also included other “The Wizard of Oz” memorabilia, including a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who played the original Wicked Witch of the West.