the legendary red shoes of the “Wizard of Oz” put up for auction after having disappeared for thirteen years

The pair is the one Dorothy wears “when she begins her adventure” or “when she kicks her heels to get home,” recalls Nikki Hale, for whom shoes are “the Holy Grail of movie memories.” Only four pairs survive from the filming of “The Wizard of Oz”, released in 1939, and which left its mark on generations of Americans and moviegoers around the world.

Found in Tupperware in 2018

The story of this one, owned by the same collector since the 1970s, is worthy of a film. Preserved in the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, the actress’s hometown in Minnesota, the shoes mysteriously disappeared in 2005. Despite a bounty offered to find them which increased over time to a million dollars , it will be necessary to wait until 2018 for the FBI to finally get their hands on it after a long investigation. “They were found in a Tupperware buried in the ground,” says Nikki Hale.

The author of the theft, Terry Martin, aged around fifty at the time, admitted the facts and indicated that he had stolen the shoes because he believed them to be encrusted with real rubies. He was finally sentenced to a one-year suspended prison sentence in early January.