Judy Garland’s Wizard of Oz ruby slippers up for auction for $800k after theft by mobster

The slippers, one of four pairs in existence, were stolen by a gangster who believed they were covered in real rubies

A pair of ruby red slippers worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 cinema classic The Wizard of Oz are going up for auction, two decades after they were stolen by a mobster who believed they were covered in real rubies.

The prop shoes, which are one of four pairs created for the film believed to still be in existence, are in fact covered in sequins. They belong to memorabilia collector Michael Shaw, who in 2005 loaned them to the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

That year, ex-mobster Terry Jon Martin smashed through a display case and stole the slippers. Their whereabouts remained a mystery until the FBI recovered them in 2018.

Martin was 76 when he was sentenced to time served because of his poor health in January this year.

He admitted to using a hammer to smash the glass of the museum’s door and display case, in what his attorney said was an attempt to pull off “one last score” after an old associate with connections to the mob told him the shoes must be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1m insured value.

Ruby Red Slippers worn by Judy Garland in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ on display in New York in 2011 (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images)

The slippers were returned to Shaw. Now, the Judy Garland Museum is among those vying to buy the slippers, which Shaw is auctioning through Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas.

Online bidding has already started and will continue through December 7. The current bid stands at $812,500.

Grand Rapids raised money for the slippers at its annual Judy Garland festival, and those funds will supplement the $100,000 set aside this year by Minnesota lawmakers to help purchase the slippers.

In their official decription of the slippers, Heritage said: “The Ruby Slippers are a vintage pair of Innes Shoe Co. red silk faille heels with uppers and heels covered with hand-sequined silk georgette, lined in white leather, and the leather soles are painted red with orange felt adhered to the front foundation of each shoe.

“The bows are made of hand-cut buckram cloth and are slightly different in size. Rhinestones rim the bows, which are filled with bugle beads surrounding three center jewels.”

The auction of movie memorabilia also includes other items from The Wizard of Oz, such as a hat worn by Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West and the screen door from Dorothy’s Kansas home.

In 2022, an ornate hourglass belonging to the Wicked Witch of the West, played in the film by Margaret Hamilton, sold at auction for nearly half a million dollars.

The item features prominently in the scene in which Dorothy (Judy Garland) confronts the Witch, who gestures to the hourglass and tells her: “You see that? That’s how much longer you’ve got to be alive! And it isn’t long, my pretty! It isn’t long!”

The hourglass was bought at auction for a total of $495,000, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Additional reporting by Associated Press