A hat worn in the Wizard of Oz will be auctioned this December and it's expected to realise a multimillion price.
It's the perfect time to sell the costume piece, first donned by Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 children's classic.
The character of the Wicked Witch has been reimagined and gained a heroic backstory in the Wicked films.
The first movie, in which Cynthia Erivo plays the younger witch, now named Elphaba Thropp, made around three-quarters-of-a-billion dollars.
One of the most recognisable pieces of costume design in movie history couldn't be worn by any other character. Image courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
This Christmas, the prequel's sequel, Wicked For Good has been released.
The hat is again an iconic item: its adoption by Elphaba a symbolic and significant moment in the new films, just as Margaret Hamilton's silhouette in the 1939 movie is defined by it.
The hat will be sold at Heritage Auctions Hollywood/Entertainment Signature Auction on December 9 - 10.
It's being sold without an estimate, but with an opening bid of $100,000.
It's likely to go for much more.
It is one of just two surviving Wicked Witch hats from the MGM original with a chin strap. That shows it was almost certainly used for the famous flying sequences in the movie.
Film critics voted Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch as the fourth greatest movie villain of all time. Now, with a new name, Elpahaba is getting a new life with a less black, white, and green back story.
The other example was sold last year. The headlines in that sale, also at Heritage, were taken by the Ruby Slippers from the same film. While the shoes made a record-setting $32.5 million, the $2.93 million paid for the hat make it a substantial and important relic of Hollywood Golden Age history.
The Wizard of Oz was not really a major hit until it became a staple on TV.
Its shoot was difficult: Margaret Hamilton was severely burned by a special effect; star Judy Garland suffered awful abuse.
But their roles in Oz ended up defining them.
The movie has been recrafted many times, most famously as The Wiz, featuring a host of Black American stars, perhaps most disastrously as a Muppet TV special that was panned for inappropriately sexual content.
Judy Garland sang Over the Rainbow throughout her troubled career. And Margaret Hamilton put on the archetypal witch's hat in many a TV guest appearance.
MGM's chief designer, Adrian, (Adrian Adolph Greenburg) designed the headpiece, and the Ruby Slippers. A metal hoop helps keep it standing tall at more than a foot high.
It has come to sale in 2025 from David Weisz, whose auction company handled the most famous movie auction of them all, the 1970 MGM sale.
What heights will it reach in December?
It's a wickedly long time to wait, but there's no shortcut.
