A pair of ruby ​​red slippers worn by actress Judy Garland in the classic film The Wizard of Oz sold for $28 million (£22 million) at a US auction on Saturday.

The famous sequined pumps are one of four surviving pairs used in the film. They were once stolen from a museum in Minnesota.

Online bidding began a month ago and the slippers are expected According to Heritage Auctions, they can fetch up to $3 million (£2.35 million) at auction. – an underestimate of $25 million (£20 million).

Auctioneers called the slippers the “Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia” and said their selling price made them the most valuable pieces of movie memorabilia ever sold at auction.

The winning bid drew applause in the Dallas auction room, with the sale coinciding with renewed interest in the musical following the recent release of the prequel film “Wicked.”

Garland was just 16 years old when she played Dorothy in the classic 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz. Media outlet Variety ranked it second in its inaugural list of the “100 Greatest Movies of All Time.”

The film is a musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 children’s book “The Wizard of Oz.” While in the book the magical slippers are silver, the film’s producers changed them to red to take advantage of the new Technicolor technology to use.

In the film, as in the book, there comes a crucial moment when Dorothy must click her heels three times while repeating “There’s no place like home” in order to leave the magical land of Oz and return to her Aunt Em in Kansas .

While 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 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 Jon Martin smashed the glass display case with a hammer and grabbed the slippers, believing their $1 million insurance value must be because they were covered in real gemstones.

But when he took them to a “fence” – a broker 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 secured the shoes in a sting operation. What happened to them during these 13 years is still unknown.

In 2023, Martin – who was in his 70s and used a wheelchair – pleaded guilty to theft and was sentenced to prison.

“There are some closures, and we definitely know that Terry Jon Martin broke into our museum, but I would like to know what happened to them after he let them go,” said John Kelsch, curator of the Judy Garland Museum. said CBS News Minnesota in 2023.

“Just doing it because he thought they were real rubies and handing them over to a jewelry fence. I mean, the value isn’t in rubies. The asset is an American treasure, a national treasure. Stealing them without knowing it seems ridiculous.” .”