The original Robby The Robot, from the classic 1956 MGM Sci Film, “Forbidden Planet” sold for an impressive $4.5 million dollars ($5,375,000 with buyers premium), at Bonhams Auctions in New York today as part of their Bonhams/TCM auction. However, many media outlets are incorrectly reporting that the sale broke the previous auction record, of the 2011 sale of Debbie Reynolds’s Marilyn Monroe White Subway Dress, which is not true. In 2011 Debbie Reynolds’s, Marilyn Monroe’s white subway dress from “The Seven-Year Itch” was sold by Profiles in History for $4.6 million before premium, and $5,520,000 ($5,658,000, depending on the percentage the winning bidder paid) million with buyers premium, so it appears that holds the record (for a costume/prop) .

Of course I may have missed something, as I don’t have the vast resources The New York Times, Bonhams (which also reported Robby as “breaking the record”), and Reuters, who said of the sale, “topped the $4.6 million for the white dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch” do.  Again wrong reporting by Reuters.

No doubt about it, Robby got a impressive price but all the outlets mentioned above (including the auction house that sold Robby,) got it wrong.

Robby was sold along with his Jeep, control panel and original MGM crates. Congratulations to Bill and CeCe Malone, the auction winner, and Bonhams.