Although Garland wore several pairs of shoes during filming, only four are known to have survived.
One of the pairs is on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. But this pair put up for auction has its own unique story.
Collector Michael Shaw had loaned the slippers to the Judy Garland Museum in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, when they were stolen in 2005.
Professional thief Terry John Martin used a hammer to smash the display case and rip out the slippers, believing their $1 million insurance value must be because they were encrusted with real gems.
But when he took them to a “fence” — a middleman who sells stolen goods to unsuspecting buyers — he discovered they were just glass.
That’s why he gave the shoes to someone else. Only in 2018, the FBI discovered the shoes during a special operation. What happened to them during these 13 years is still unknown.
In 2023, Martin, who was in his 70s and confined to a wheelchair, pleaded guilty to stealing them and was sentenced to life in prison.
“There are some closures, and we know for a fact that Terry John Martin did break into our museum, but I’d like to know what happened to them after he let them go,” John Kelsch, Judy Garland Museum Curator, told CBS News Minnesota in 2023, external. “Just to do it because he thought they were real rubies and give them to the jewelry park. I mean, the value is not in the rubies. The treasure is an American treasure, a national treasure. Steal them without knowing what seems funny. .”
