Story at a glance
- A leather helmet worn by Amelia Earhart on a 1928 flight across the Atlantic sold for $825,000.
- The helmet sold to an unnamed buyer through Heritage Auctions.
- The helmet’s consignor, Anthony Twiggs, wrote in a letter to Heritage Auctions he inherited the famous helmet from his mother who was in a crowd of fans.
A leather helmet worn by Amelia Earhart on a 1928 flight across the Atlantic sold at auction on Sunday for $825,000.
The helmet, which Earhart was photographed wearing after the 1928 flight as a passenger and then again, a year later, sold online through Heritage Auctions to an unnamed buyer.
Earhart lost the helmet in 1929 after landing during the Women’s National Air Derby, an all-female event from Santa Monica, Calif., to Cleveland.
The helmet’s consignor, Anthony Twiggs, wrote in a letter to Heritage Auctions he inherited the famous helmet from his mother who was in a crowd of fans. Twiggs said a boy who had “romantic intentions” toward his mother gave her the item.
Twiggs added in the letter that the “cap was never played with, displayed or worn” during the 92 years it was in his family.
“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.”
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Twiggs verified the helmet’s authenticity through photo matching technology, which determined the helmet in his possession was an exact match to the helmet Earhart wore in photos from her Atlantic crossing in 1928.
Changing America has reached out to Heritage Auctions for comment.
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