Leather helmet worn by Amelia Earhart on 1928 flight across the Atlantic sells for 10 times the expected price at auction

A leather helmet that Amelia Earhart wore on a flight across the Atlantic in 1928 and later lost in a crowd of fans in Cleveland has sold at auction for $825,000 — more than 10 times the $80,000 expected price cited by the auction house.

The helmet went to an anonymous bidder in an online-only sale that closed Sunday, a spokesperson for Heritage Auctions said.

The seller was Anthony Twiggs, a 67-year-old Minnesotan who had tried for years to prove that the leather aviator's helmet he inherited from his mother was really Earhart's.