Morphy’s June Auction broke $1.4 million and made a lot of hobbyists very
happy. While the listings in Advertising, Character Toys and Figures and Cast
Iron certainly deserve the attention they get, there was a small area of
listings that very quietly sold out.

The Wizard of Oz has had a
strong following since it first appeared on book shelves in 1900. When most
people hear the name of Oz they immediately think of the immortal 1939 film
adaptation starring Judy Garland. However, there is strong collector’s community
that firmly believes no film could ever do justice to the original words of
author L. Frank Baum. These collectors search book stores, auctions and other
venues for hard to find volumes among the varied printings of Baum’s Oz output.
This last Morphy Auction fetured some great listings in the Oz
books.

Baum’s first book, originally titled The Wonderful Wizard of
Oz (and also published briefly as The New Wizard of Oz in 1903), was
a hit right out of the gate. It took four more years for a sequel to emerge in
1904. Baum eventually ended up writing a total of 14 Oz titles.

The
series did not end there. Eventually a total forty titles have come to be
recognized as the official Oz canon. Throughout the twenties and thirties, Ruth
Plumly Thompson wrote 19 of them with an amazing amount of regularity. (Plumly
Thompson also contributed to Little Lulu). When she left the title, several
other authors contributed to the series eventually bringing the total to the
recognized forty.

Over the years Oz branched out into theatre, movies,
radio, television, animation and just about any medium that would hold an
adaptation. Some pretty strange rumors have even sprung up about the book.
Scoop even addressed one of them, the theory of the Gold Standard, Oz and
Pink Floyd, in this
article from October of 2005.

Morphy’s recent listings of Oz
books and toys may have slipped by the general collectors, but they did not
escape the watchful eye of the Oz faithful. Every single one of the thirty-three
lots sold.

There were board games, toys and various printings of the Oz
titles. Almost every one of the books were from the original 14 by Baum. For a
look at the complete listings from Morphy’s Summer Auction, please visit http://www.morphyauctions.com/default.html.