Ruby Slippers Worn By Judy Garland in 'Wizard of Oz' to be Auctioned Off 20 Years After Being Stolen

AP Photo/Ed Zurga, File

A pair of "Ruby Slippers" worn by Judy Garland in the film "Wizard of Oz" is being auctioned off this Saturday. 

Heritage Auctions says these slippers are the "Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia." The auction began last month online and bidding has already sent the price to $1.55 million. The winning bid is expected to be over $3 million.

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Several pairs of the "Ruby Slippers" were worn by Garland during the filming of the movie, but only four pairs are known to have survived. One pair is on display at the Smithsonian, while two more are in the possession of private collectors.

This particular pair of "Ruby Slippers" has its own strange history.

BBC:

Collector Michael Shaw had loaned the slippers out to the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, when they were stolen in 2005.

Professional thief Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass case and snatch the slippers, believing that their insured value of $1m must be because they were covered in actual gemstones.

But when he took them to a "fence" - and intermediary who sells stolen goods to discreet buyers - he discovered they were just glass.

So he gave the shoes to someone else. It wasn't until 2018 that the FBI recovered the shoes in a sting operation. What happened to them in those 13 years is still not known.

"There's some closure, and we do know definitely that Terry Jon Martin did break into our museum, but I'd like to know what happened to them after he let them go," the curator of the Judy Garland Museum, John Kelsch, told CBS News.

"Just to do it because he thought they were real rubies and to turn them over to a jewelry fence. I mean, the value is not rubies. The value is an American treasure, a national treasure. To steal them without knowing that seems ludicrous."

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"The Wizard of Oz" was ranked the second-best film of all time, according to Variety in 2022. Music and lyrics were by Harold Arlen and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, who won an Academy Award for Best Song for "Over the Rainbow." It was based on a best-selling children's book published in 1900, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum.

In the book, the "Ruby Slippers" were silver, but MGM wanted to show off their new technicolor camera, so they changed the slippers to ones made of red rubies. 

It's the power of movie magic that turned those nearly worthless shoes into a priceless icon that the thief thought was worth stealing. Martin's belief that the shoes must be worth a lot because they were insured for a million dollars brings to mind the hunt for Humphrey Bogart's "Maltese Falcon," which instead of being encrusted with jewels as the legend told, was a worthless statue.

Associated Press:

Martin, now 77, who lives near Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota, wasn’t publicly exposed as the thief until he was indicted in May 2023. He pleaded guilty in October 2023. He was in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen when he was sentenced last January to time served because of his poor health.

His attorney, Dane DeKrey, explained ahead of sentencing that Martin, who had a long history of burglary and receiving stolen property, was attempting to pull off “one last score” after an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value. But a fence — a person who buys stolen goods — later told him the rubies were just glass, DeKrey said. So Martin got rid of the slippers. The attorney didn’t specify how.

The alleged fence, Jerry Hal Saliterman, 77, of the Minneapolis suburb of Crystal, was indicted in March. He was also in a wheelchair and on oxygen when he made his first court appearance. He’s scheduled to go on trial in January and hasn’t entered a plea, though his attorney has said he’s not guilty.

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Also up for auction is the hat worn by the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton. 

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