By Rebeccah Biggar
CNN reports that a leather cap owned by Amelia Earhart could sell for at least $80,000 as it goes up for auction this weekend. According to Heritage Auctions, this cap was worn by Earhart when she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Earhart made this historic flight from Newfoundland, Canada to Burry Port, Wales while flying as a passenger with pilots Wilmer Stlzand and Louis Gordon in 1928. Four years later in 1932, she made her mark in aviation history when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
The cap was given to the owner’s mother in August 1929 when she was watching the National Air Races in Cleveland, Ohio- an event that Earhart had been involved in. Her friend decided to meet the pilots after they had landed. When he came back, he handed her a cap that he said he had found on the ground that had the name ‘A. Earhart” written on the inside.
“Heritage Auctions is honored to be offering this flight cap at auction for the very first time, in part because there are so few artifacts remaining from her, but also because Amelia Earhart was, as the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum notes, ‘a courageous and dedicated aviator and … an enduring inspiration to women,'” said Chris Ivy, founder, and president of Heritage Sports, in a statement to CNN.
Five years after her solo flight in 1932, Earhart took off from Miami in an effort to achieve her ambition of becoming the first woman to fly across the world.
Tragically, she never completed her journey. Earhart along with her navigator Fred Noonan mysteriously went missing in July of 1937 when trying to fly to Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. The complete circumstances of their disappearance are still unknown.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/style/article/amelia-earhart-cap-auction-scli-intl/?hpt=ob_blogfooterold