Heritage Auctions, the auction house that sold the shoes, said in a press release that the slippers, one of four surviving pairs from the 1939 movie, had live bidding starting at $1.55 million. Pre-auction estimates for the slippers were around $3 million.
“They surpassed that within seconds,” the auction house said.
With the auction house’s fee, the buyer will pay a total of $32.5 million.
The famous slippers, called “the Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia” by the auction house, already had a rich history.
As Rhys Thomas, author of The Ruby Slippers of Oz, said, they have gone through “more twists and turns than the Yellow Brick Road.”
The slippers were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 2005 while on loan and were missing for over ten years.
The FBI found the shoes in 2018 during a sting operation.
The man who stole the slippers, 77-year-old Terry Jon Martin, pleaded guilty to the theft last year.
Martin’s lawyer said his client thought the rubies on the shoes were real, but he threw them away after learning they were just glass.
Martin, who was in poor health, did not receive any prison time during a hearing in early 2024, according to the Associated Press.
The shoes were given back to their owner, Michael Shaw, earlier this year. He then gave them to Heritage Auctions for Saturday’s sale.
The sale of the shoes comes as interest in the musical grows again, especially after the release of Wicked, which tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West. The movie, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, has been very successful, earning more than $295 million in the U.S. and over $390 million worldwide.
