"…never let those ruby slippers off your feet for a moment". Well, it seems that Dorothy eventually forgot that good advice from Glinda as a set of ruby slippers from her lengthy (and, as it turned out, totally unnecessary) journey to meet the Wizard of Oz has come up for auction.
The pair is one of four known surviving sets made for the film. The other three sets are unlikely to become available to collectors any time soon - only one of them is officially owned privately.
One set is in the Smithsonian, and the other is supposed to be in the Judy Garland museum, but they went for a walk several years ago, courtesy of persons unknown.
The set under discussion will be auctioned on December 16 in Los Angeles as part of a Hollywood memorabilia sale. They will not be cheap.
It is believed that these are the set which Dorothy finally clicked together (in close-up) to return her from Munchkinland to Kansas (they have light scuff marks on the soles).
| The best footwear to win a marathon... The ruby slippers in action |
They appear also to have been the first pair to appear in the story, on the remains of the evil witch Dorothy drops her house on.
Considering a pair of test slippers, a part of the Debbie Reynolds collection, sold a couple of months back for $612,000, it's perhaps not surprising that Profiles in History, who are auctioning the pair, have indicated that they expect them to achieve $2m-3m.
Collectors without access to that kind of money could always try jumping into the slippers on the day and flicking their heels together, but we wouldn't recommend it.
