Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz are the most valuable piece of movie memorabilia ever sold at auction. They made £24.5 million ($32.5 million, including buyer's premium) at Heritage Auctions on 7 December 2024, against an estimate of $3 million and up (about £2.3 million).

Fame explains why people wanted the slippers. In our view, what made bidders confident enough to pay more than 10 times the low estimate was the proof behind this particular pair. The same idea runs through our Movie Memorabilia Market Report.

Read the Movie Memorabilia Market Report

The proof behind the most valuable movie memorabilia

Judy Garland wore several pairs of ruby slippers in the film, and four are known to survive. Heritage catalogued this pair as screen-matched, and its catalogue note sets out the evidence.

A forensic specialist who consults for the Smithsonian studied the film frame by frame and concluded that Garland wore the slippers through most of the picture, including three close-ups. The manufacturer's numbers inside the shoes match numbers inside the Smithsonian's own pair, which ties the two pairs together.

The ownership trail is on record too. A costumier found a cache of slippers while preparing MGM's studio auction in 1970 and sold this pair to a collector, who toured the slippers for decades. Thieves took them from a museum in Minnesota in 2005. The FBI recovered them in 2018 and had the Smithsonian examine them next to its own pair. Heritage sold them with its own certificate of authenticity.

That is what screen-matched means at the top of the market: evidence that other people have tested, set out where any bidder could read it.

Screen-used or screen-matched? The difference can be worth multiples

Screen-used means an object was on set and used in the production. Screen-matched means you can point to the frame it appears in, usually by matching wear, paint damage or stitching against the finished film. In our experience a screen-matched piece is worth multiples of one that is merely screen-used, and the difference is the most useful thing to understand before you spend anything.

Darth Vader's lightsaber shows how matching works. Propstore's catalogue entry ties it to a production still from The Empire Strikes Back by a distinctive curve in its D-ring, and to a close-up in Return of the Jedi by a dent in the lower end cap. It also states the limit of the evidence: the wear resembles that in photographs from A New Hope, but not closely enough to say the lightsaber was used in that film. Propstore estimated it at $1 million to $3 million, and in September 2025 it made £2.8 million ($3.7 million, including buyer's premium), according to the company's results release.

The word is in everyday use in the trade. Five of the 19 lots in the release's list of notable results from the first day of the sale carried "screen-matched" in their titles.

Why a famous name no longer carries the price

The same pattern shows at the accessible end of the market. A signature from an actor with a long career is not scarce, however famous the name, and the later mass-produced posters from famous films are simply common. The premium has moved to objects that can be matched to a frame, which is a question of documentation rather than of fame.

Paul Fraser, our chairman, says it plainly in the report:

I have been buying and selling this material for 45 years, and the question I am asked most often is what makes one object worth 100 times another that looks identical to it. The answer is almost always paperwork.

Paul Fraser, Chairman, Paul Fraser Collectibles

How to buy movie memorabilia with proof on your side

Start with who is vouching for the piece. A certificate from a recognised authenticator with a traceable history is evidence, while a printed card from an unnamed source is decoration. Then ask where the object has been since filming ended and whether it can be screen-matched. If the seller says it can, ask them to show you the frame. A seller who offers nothing beyond "from a private collection" has given you no provenance at all.

Our pieces come with a Certificate of Authenticity and, on almost all of them, a Lifetime Moneyback Guarantee of Authenticity. You can browse our authenticated movie memorabilia for sale, which includes screen-used props and signed photographs.

What is inside the Movie Memorabilia Market Report

The ruby slippers are one object. The report covers the market around them:

• the ten most valuable film props ever sold, and the ten most collectible film stars, ranked on auction performance
• what is selling, what is cooling, and which films are selling best
• the words that change the price, how to spot a fake and where to buy safely
• budget entry points, from signed photographs under £200 to named objects with documented provenance at £10,000 and above
• three objects that sold twice at public auction, and what the second sale did to the price
• the dates that could move prices, from the 20th anniversary of Casino Royale on 14 November 2026 to Star Wars turning 50 on 25 May 2027
• our rating of how active the market is right now, scored against four signals, and Paul Fraser's expert view

Read the full Movie Memorabilia Market Report

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About the figures: sterling amounts are converted at the European Central Bank reference rate of 23 September 2026, £1 = $1.3276, the rate used throughout the report. Heritage states on its lot page that the price of the ruby slippers includes buyer's premium. Propstore gives the lightsaber's price as $3,654,000, including buyer's premium. This article is a marketing communication and not investment advice.