Elvis Presley’s Blue Suede Shoes Sell for $150,000 at Auction

Gifted to a friend before he entered the Army in 1958, Elvis’ famous blue suede shoes, worn on and offstage and immortalized in song, leave bidders “All Shook Up.”

Elvis Presley is a pop culture icon in every way, as famous for his flamboyant style as he is for his genre-defining music. After covering Carl Perkins’s “Blue Suede Shoes” on his debut album, he wore a pair of those eponymous shoes to interviews and performances as he shot to stardom. The night before he left for the Army in 1958, he held a party at Graceland and gave some of his clothes as gifts to his friends. His blue suede shoes, size 10 1/2, stamped “Nunn-Bush,” went to Alan Fortas, foreman at the Circle G Ranch and an extra in many of Elvis’s movies.

Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd of Wiltshire, England, included those shoes in their Two-Day Auction of Showbiz, Fine Art, Jewellery, and Collector’s Items starting on June 28. The shoes sold for £120,000, or a little over $150,000, to a collector in California. The auction house is no stranger to pop culture history, having made news within the last year for sales of Titanic memorabilia, including a gold pocket watch belonging to a famous passenger and a first-class menu.

Elvis famously wore the shoes when he appeared on the “Steve Allen Show” on July 1, 1956. He mentioned them before breaking into his song “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.” In the same episode, he sang “Hound Dog” to a dog and appeared in a comedy sketch with actor Andy Griffith.

Jimmy Velvet, Elvis’s longtime friend, and founder of the Elvis Presley Museum, authenticated the shoes. The auction lot included a signed letter and certificate of authenticity, as well as a letter from Alan Fortas detailing the gift.

While a stage-worn costume piece, let alone one that’s the subject of a hit song might be out of the price range of the average fan, Elvis Presley memorabilia remains a popular category for collectors, from inexpensive ephemera like postcards to custom guitars. There is even an auction house, Graceland Auctions, dedicated to the King of Rock n’ Roll.

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