Screen-Used Costume
Cowardly Lion costume from The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Wizard of Oz costumes are the apex of golden-age Hollywood memorabilia. The Cowardly Lion costume is among the most-cited — the Scarecrow costume sold for $300K in 2019, and the Witch's hat in the $100K range.
- Sale price
- $3.08M
- USD · hammer + buyer's premium
- Sale date
- November 24, 2014
- Venue
- Bonhams
- Authentication
- Documented production use by Bert Lahr; Bonhams specialist authentication; comparison to studio photography.
Provenance
From MGM studio inventory; held by a documentation-trail private collection.
Condition
Original lion-skin construction, screen-wear consistent with production.
Editorial note
Wizard of Oz costumes are the apex of golden-age Hollywood memorabilia. The Cowardly Lion costume is among the most-cited — the Scarecrow costume sold for $300K in 2019, and the Witch's hat in the $100K range.
Sources cited
Bonhams November 2014
auction house
Reuters: 'Cowardly Lion costume sells for $3M'
trade press
Reported figures reflect publicly-cited hammer + buyer's premium as of source date. May differ slightly from auction-house internal records. Educational reference, not appraisal.
Comparable comps
Similar items in the Field Index.
Curated by the editors as relevant comparable sales — same category, same era, or same authentication tier. Useful for triangulating value when no single comp answers the question.
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