Huge Reward Offered for Dorothy's Red Slippers

There's no place like home—especially for a pair of authentic slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. In fact, an anonymous donor is offering $1 million for information that leads to the return of the red shoes stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minn., 10 years ago, CBS News reports. Insured for $1 million, the slippers may be worth between $2 million and $3 million today, says the museum's executive director, who only revealed that the donor hails from Arizona and is, unsurprisingly, a big fan of the film and Garland, a native of Grand Rapids. Anyone seeking the reward must give the slipper's precise location and say who stole them by smashing open their glass case in August 2005, Sky News reports.

Itasca County Sheriff's Office volunteer divers followed up on a long-running rumor last month, plunging 238 feet into an underwater mine pit near Grand Rapids seeking the stolen shoes, which were said to be in a sealed and weighted Tupperware container. No slippers were surfaced, though the Duluth News Tribune reported a duffel bag and tin can were found and turned over to police. The pair is one of four known sets of slippers designed for the 1939 film, including one acquired for a planned Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences museum, and one being shown at the Smithsonian Institute, Vanity Fair reports. Neat factoid: Silver in L. Frank Baum’s original Oz books, the shoes were written red in the script to benefit from a cool new thing called Technicolor. (The shoes are one of seven high-profile missing movie props.)