Amelia Earhart’s helmet sells for $825,000 to anonymous buyer at auction

Earhart wore helmet on 1928 flight across the Atlantic

Amelia Earhart’s cap sells for $825,000 at auction (Getty / Heritage Auctions, HA.com)

A leather helmet worn by Amelia Earhart has sold at auction to an anonymous buyer for $825,000.

The leather cap was worn by the pioneering pilot during a trans-Atlantic flight in 1928, during which she became the first woman on board a plane crossing the Atlantic, according to the Seattle Times, but was later lost in a crowd of fans in Cleveland.

According to The New York Times, during Earhart’s time in Cleveland, where she had been participating in the eight-day Women’s National Air Derby, she also lost her goggles, which were later donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

The helmet ultimately found itself in the possession of Anthony Twiggs, 67, from Minnesota, who reportedly tried to prove for years that the cap, inherited from his mother, belonged to the pilot.

Twiggs was able to finally authenticate the artifact, after being dismissed numerous times over the years, through photo matching, which compares photos of objects to old photos or film, according to the outlet.

The photos he’d taken himself of the cap matched pictures taken from Earhart’s first flight across the Atlantic.

After further authentication, Twiggs contacted Heritage Auctions, which listed Earhart’s helmet in its sports memorabilia category.

The cap was expected to sell for $80,000, according to the outlet, but ended up selling for more than 10 times the estimate.

In a press release documenting the sale, Heritage Auctions said that “heated bidding” drove the price of the cap up, but confirmed that the winning bidder is “remaining anonymous”.