By STEVE KARNOWSKI and HANNAH FINGERHUT Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A pair of iconic ruby slippers that had been worn by Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” and stolen from a museum almost 20 years in the past offered for a profitable bid of $28 million at public sale Saturday.
Heritage Auctions had estimated that they might fetch $3 million or extra, however the fast-paced bidding far outpaced that quantity inside seconds and tripled it inside minutes. A couple of bidders making gives by telephone volleyed backwards and forwards for quarter-hour as the worth climbed to the ultimate, eye-popping sum.
Including the Dallas-based public sale home’s price, the unknown purchaser will finally pay $32.5 million.
Online bidding, which opened final month, had stood at $1.55 million earlier than stay bidding started late Saturday afternoon.
The sparkly purple heels had been on show on the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005 when Terry Jon Martin used a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and show case.
Their whereabouts remained a thriller till the FBI recovered them in 2018. Martin, now 77, who lives close to Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota, wasn’t publicly uncovered because the thief till he was indicted in May 2023. He pleaded responsible in October 2023. He was in a wheelchair and on supplementary oxygen when he was sentenced final January to time served due to his poor well being.
His legal professional, Dane DeKrey, defined forward of sentencing that Martin, who had an extended historical past of housebreaking and receiving stolen property, was trying to drag off “one final rating” after an outdated affiliate with connections to the mob advised him the footwear needed to be adorned with actual jewels to justify their $1 million insured worth. But a fence — an individual who buys stolen items — later advised him the rubies had been simply glass, DeKrey stated. So Martin removed the slippers. The legal professional didn’t specify how.
The alleged fence, Jerry Hal Saliterman, 77, of the Minneapolis suburb of Crystal, was indicted in March. He was additionally in a wheelchair and on oxygen when he made his first court docket look. He’s scheduled to go on trial in January and hasn’t entered a plea, although his legal professional has stated he’s not responsible.
The footwear had been returned in February to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw, who had loaned them to the museum. They had been considered one of a number of pairs that Garland wore throughout the filming, however solely 4 pairs are identified to have survived. In the film, to return from Oz to Kansas, Dorothy needed to click on her heels thrice and repeat, “There’s no place like house.”
As Rhys Thomas, creator of “The Ruby Slippers of Oz,” put it, the sequined footwear from the beloved 1939 musical have seen “extra twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road.”
Over 800 individuals had been monitoring the slippers, and the corporate’s webpage for the public sale had hit almost 43,000 web page views by Thursday, stated Robert Wilonsky, a vp with the public sale home.
Among these bidding to convey the slippers house was the Judy Garland Museum, which posted on Facebook shortly after that it didn’t place the profitable bid. The museum had campaigned for donations to complement cash raised by the town of Grand Rapids at its annual Judy Garland pageant and the $100,000 put aside this yr by Minnesota lawmakers to assist the museum buy the slippers.
After the slippers offered, the auctioneer advised bidders and spectators within the room and watching on-line that the earlier report for a chunk of leisure memorabilia was $5.52 million, for the white gown Marilyn Monroe famously wore atop a windy subway grate.
The public sale additionally included different memorabilia from “The Wizard of Oz,” resembling a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton, who performed the unique Wicked Witch of the West. That merchandise went for $2.4 million, or a complete last price to the customer of $2.93 million.
“The Wizard of Oz” story has gained new consideration in latest weeks with the discharge of the film “Wicked,” an adaptation of the megahit Broadway musical, a prequel of kinds that reimagines the character of the Wicked Witch of the West.
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Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa.
