Ellie Brookhart got it from a boy who had a crush on her, in 1929 following the first Women’s National Air Derby in Cleveland, Ohio, in which Earhart finished third.
Brookhart was talking with reporters after the race when the guy spotted the cap on the ground. He presented the leather helmet—with the name “A. Earhart” printed on the inside—to Brookhart in an attempt to impress her.
Anthony Twiggs, a 67-year-old retired photographer in Minnesota, says his mother (Brookhart) was more interested in the hat, however, than the young man. “My mother kept it for Amelia,” he tells the New York Times. “She thought it was the neatest thing.”
For the next 90 years, the cap was kept in a plastic bag in a closet in Brookhart’s home, where she would bring it out occasionally over the years to show her four children. Soon after his mother’s death,
Resolution Photomatching to verify the flying cap’s authenticity.
The leather helmet was expected to sell at around $80,000, according to Sana Noor Haq of CNN, but on Saturday, an unnamed buyer purchased the cap at $825,000
Heritage Auctions president Chris Ivy tells CNN in a statement that one of the highlights of the item is that it is easily identifiable in images of Earhart. “The cap has an amazing, stirring story to tell. And not only does it have outstanding provenance, but irrefutable photo matching as well.”
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