Short answers, pulled from the story.
Heritage Auctions was founded in 1976 by Steve Ivy in Dallas, Texas. It grew out of Ivy's earlier Steve Ivy Rare Coin Co., which he formed in Dallas after dropping out of the University of Texas at Austin in 1967.
In 2025, Heritage Auctions closed with more than $2.15 billion in total annual sales, its fifth consecutive record-breaking year. The 2024 figure was $1.867 billion, and 2023 sales reached $1.76 billion.
The screen-matched ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz sold on the 7th of December 2024, for $32.5 million. Heritage described them as the Holy Grail of Hollywood memorabilia.
On the 25th of August 2024, Babe Ruth's called shot jersey sold through Heritage Auctions for $24.12 million, making it the most expensive sports collectible in history. It surpassed the $12.6 million paid for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card in 2022.
Heritage Auctions sold Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov's Nobel Peace Prize medal on the 21st of June 2022, for $103.5 million, the highest price ever paid for a Nobel medal. All proceeds were directed to UNICEF to support humanitarian relief for refugees from Ukraine.
Heritage has faced several legal disputes, including lawsuits against Christie's over the hiring of handbag specialists and alleged web scraping of three million auction listings. In 2012, Mongolia sued Heritage over the auction of a Tyrannosaurus bataar fossil; Heritage later helped repatriate the specimen. In 2024, the Atlanta Braves issued a cease and desist letter disputing Heritage's claim to hold bases from Hank Aaron's 714th home run game.