Original ‘Cowardly Lion’ Costume Sells for Over $3 Million at Auction
The original "Cowardly Lion" costume that was worn by Bert Lahr in the 1939 "Wizard of Oz" movie sold for a little over $3 million at Bonham's Turner Classic Movies auction.
The costume sold for $3.07 million, which includes a buyer premium of $477,000. Though it didn't set a record for movie memorabilia sale, it exceeded the amount experts expected it to sell for.
The outfit is reportedly made of real lion skin. It was rescued from the MGM Building by a junk dealer who was cleaning out the abandoned building in the seventies. Several other costumes were created by the studio for the film but a thorough analysis of the fur revealed that this was the original one.
Previously, a secondary costume used in the movie reportedly sold for a million dollars.
James Comisar, the founder of Los Angeles TV Museum bought the original costume long back and had it preserved by professional museum curators for years, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Along with the "Cowardly Lion" costume, the piano used by Dooley Wilson's character Sam in "Casablanca" also sold for $3.14 million.
The auction record for movie memorabilia is $4.6 million paid for the Aston Martin Sean Connery drove in the James Bond movie "The Goldfinch." The record price for television memorabilia is also $4.6 million paid for the Batmobile in the sixties.
