Hollywood Memorabilia

February 14 2026

THE MGM AUCTION, 1970 – A TIME TO REMEMBER

It was in 1970 that perhaps the most significant moment in the history of movie memorabilia took place. The location was the backlot of the MGM Studios, and the event was the auctioning of the entire contents of seven sound stages. Among the thousands of props and costumes for sale were several pairs of Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, models of the rocketship from The Forbidden Planet, the Cowardly Lion’s costume, also from The Wizard of Oz, chariots from Ben Hur, and Johnny Weissmuller’s loincloth from the Tarzan movies. As regard costumes alone, over 350,000 items fell under the hammer. Such was the volume of items to be sold, the auction spanned 32 sessions, starting on May 3, 1970.

Regarding all the items as surplus and costly to store, the studio had sold everything to auctioneer David Weisz in advance for a single and in hindsight trivial sum of $1.5 million. The deal allowed him to stage the auction at the studio, and any profits made were his alone.

The actress Debbie Reynolds was one of the most prolific buyers, spending around $180,000. However, that figure was sufficient for her to obtain one of the single largest collections of movie memorabilia known. To put things into yet more perspective, the most expensive item sold was one of the said pairs of ruby slippers. The winning bid was just $15,000. Fast forward to more recent times, and one of the pairs auctioned that day now has an estimated value of between $2 – $3 million!

February 14 2026

UNIVERSAL HORROR – THE HOLY GRAIL OF MEMORABILIA

tworobins Hollywood Memorabilia

UNIVERSAL HORROR – THE HOLY GRAIL OF MEMORABILIA

It is one of the oddities of the movie memorabilia world that some of the most valuable items to pass through the auction rooms do not belong to Oscar laden blockbusters or the most prominent of stars. Instead, they hail from a series of relatively low-budget movies made by Universal in the 1930s. Who could have foreseen that a movie based on Mary Shelley’s tale of a deranged doctor, starring a relatively unknown English actor, would become the stuff of Hollywood legend. When Boris Karloff made his appearance in Frankenstein (1931) the horror movie genre changed forever. Earlier that very same year, Bela Lugosi had swept on to the screen with a swirl of his cloak in Dracula (1931), sowing the seeds for what was to follow.

Karloff went on to add The Mummy (1932) to Universal’s lineup of horror icons, while it was left to Lon Chaney Jr. a decade later to fill the final position as The Wolf Man (1941).

Today, original posters from any of these movies bring a staggering premium at auction. The poster for Dracula fetched $525,800 at auction in 2017. The last version of the poster from The Mummy to appear on the market sold for $435,500, though that was in 1997. As for Frankenstein, the most recent example of its original poster netted $358,500 at auction in 2015.

February 14 2026

COLLECTING MOVIE MEMORABILIA – ONE STORY

tworobins Hollywood Memorabilia

COLLECTING MOVIE MEMORABILIA – ONE STORY

Collecting movie memorabilia began for me as a childhood interest in the late 1960s, that rapidly became something of an obsession. At only twelve years old, I would take myself off on the 200 or so mile journey to London, where I would hurry through the sleazy streets of Soho and into Chinatown. My destination was a room above an oriental deli that was about the only source for purchasing movie memorabilia in my home country back then. So many years have passed, but I believe it was called Cinema Treasures, or something like. There was barely space to move, with endless boxes filled with lobby cards, and tables stacked high with posters. The place had a distinctive musty smell of papers that had lain forgotten for years in the backs of projection booths or theatre box-offices. I would spend hours browsing through the disorderly collections, every now and then finding the odd gem to purchase. In hindsight, I realize that many a valuable item passed through my fingers, but I was there looking for what I liked, with no thought that someday the lobby card or poster I was holding would suddenly attain great worth. Back then, people collected because of their passion for the silver screen, not as any kind of investment. Many a time I would be there alone, apart from the affable owner, such was the popularity of movie memorabilia collecting in those days. My friends back at school could not understand why I would part with good money for objects that the movie theatres considered disposable and consigned to forgotten corners or simply thew out with the trash.

My main interest was in the movies of legendary director John Ford, as well those of the actors with whom he regularly worked, such as John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda. It was also safe to say that I had an abiding love of Western movies per se.

Over the years I amassed a decent collection, most prized among it being personally signed photos from John Ford himself, as well as similar autographed items from Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. Perhaps the strangest article in my collection is a piece of one of the sets used in the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that I happened upon while exploring the Tabernas Desert in southern Spain back in the 1970s.

The Editor