Amelia Earhart's hat sold for $825,000 at auction
A leather helmet worn by Amelia Earhart on a transatlantic flight in 1928 and later lost in a crowd of fans in Cleveland has sold at auction for $825,000.
An anonymous bidder won the helmet in an online-only auction that ended Sunday, according to a Heritage Auctions spokesperson. Anthony Twiggs, a 67-year-old Minnesotan, had spent years attempting to prove that the leather aviator's helmet he inherited from his mother was, in fact, Earhart's. Twiggs added in the letter that the "cap was never played with, displayed, or worn" during his family's 92-year ownership.
“My mother kept it for Amelia. She thought it was the neatest thing. It was never about that boy she wouldn’t even name,” Twiggs recently told The New York Times. “He didn’t impress her that much, but the helmet did.”
Earhart was only a passenger when she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in June 1928. Before and after photos show her wearing a sassy leather helmet or flight cap. The following year, Earhart competed in the Women's National Air Derby, an all-female race from Santa Monica, California, to Cleveland. Thousands of people greeted the famous aviator as she landed her single-engine Lockheed Vega at Cleveland International Airport, and she lost her helmet in the crush.
