Antiques Roadshow

APPRAISER

In 2013, at the Detroit ROADSHOW, a young man named David walked in. He identified himself as the step grandson of Bert Lahr, who's the actor who played the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, and he had his step grandfather's working script from the movie. When you were a kid-- obviously everybody watches The Wizard of Oz, every kid watches it-- were you afraid of the Cowardly Lion when he comes out? Did you know it was your great-grandfather?

GUEST

I was always told that it was my great-grandfather. It's nice to know. It's a fun fact.

APPRAISER

The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939 and has continued in popularity to its iconic status today. This is his script that he used on set. It's to him. It's been in your family ever since. It has a few condition issues, but you see it and you're just amazed and it brings you right back to when you first saw that wonderful movie and his remarkable performance. It's really such an honor to see and to touch a piece like this. Thank you.

GUEST

Thank you.

APPRAISER

Obviously, this is a family heirloom. I wouldn't insure it for anything less than $150,000. I think it's one of the most remarkable scripts I've ever seen.

GUEST

That's definitely a lot more than I thought it was going to be valued at and insurance is a necessity.

APPRAISER

It is, definitely. Thank you very much.

GUEST

Thank you very much.

APPRAISER

And he's so great. I mean, he just steals the movie.

GUEST

"Put 'em up, put 'em up, put 'em up!" "Put 'em up!"

APPRAISER

After the piece aired, somehow or another David found out that my company was having an auction in 2014, and we were selling the original Cowardly Lion suit from The Wizard of Oz. So I think he realized that this would be a great opportunity offering his script alongside the original costume.

GUEST

I am in New York City today because there is a Bonhams auction with a heavily influenced Wizard of Oz theme. It was a very good opportunity for me to sell the script.

APPRAISER

We have the Bert Lahr script that was on the ROADSHOW in this auction, I think it had an insurance value of $150,000. We have an auction estimate of $60,000 to $80,000, which is generally in line. Your insurance value is somewhere between two to five times what the auction estimate would be.

GUEST

It's a big decision to sell a family heirloom, but what good does it do in my safe deposit box? I got three kids and eventually they're gonna go to college, eventually I'm probably have to pay for a big chunk of it and their college funds could use a little bit of a boost and I figured what better for a family piece of history that I can't really show off, than to use it to continue the education of the family members. This is the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz. This is probably gonna be one of the best opportunities available. It's, it's a golden opportunity.

ANNOUNCER

Next up we have Bert Lahr's working script from The Wizard of Oz. For this lot we're gonna start bidding at $30,000 for Bert Lahr's working script. $30,000, I have $32,000 bid now at $32,000, $35,000, $50,000 going on $55,000 here. At $55,000, try $60,000 $60,000, try $65,000. At $60,000 against the room I'm gonna sell left, if no more at $60,000. Last chance. Fair warning. At $60,000 are we all done at $60,000? Sold 4023 for $60,000.

GUEST

I feel proud that, you know this family heirloom is able to live on and with somebody else taking care of it, but at the same time with a boost to the kids college fund, so...happy camper. Yeah, all around.

APPRAISER

When you look at the top selling lots in movie memorabilia, many of those items are from the Wizard of Oz. The ruby slippers are in the top 10 lot at 2 million dollars. The Dorothy dress that I sold a year after I sold the Cowardly Lion, we sold that for 1.8 million dollars. The Cowardly Lion is there he all in he was about 3 million dollars. Thirty percent of the top 10 list, at least, of the most expensive memorabilia items of all time are from one movie. That's disproportionate. That's amazing