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SYDNEY: A "baggy green" Test cap worn by Australian great Don Bradman sold for $250,000 at auction on Tuesday, as collectors competed to possess a unique piece of cricket history.
The frayed, nearly 80-year-old fabric was sun-faded, exhibited evidence of "insect damage," and had a ripped peak.
According to Bonhams, Bradman wore the headgear during India's 1947-48 tour of Australia, which was his final Test series on home soil.
In a 10-minute auction, a flurry of bidding drove the price from $160,000 to a winning offer of $250,000 (Aus$390,000).
The final cost was $310,000 when "buyer's premium" fees were added on.
Bonhams described it as "the only known baggy green" worn by Bradman throughout the series, in which he scored 715 runs in six innings at an average of 178.75, including three centuries and a double-hundred.
Australia's cricketers are given dark green woolen hats before their Test debuts, and they are cherished by both players and fans, with the more damaged the better.
In 2020, a different "baggy green" worn by Bradman at his Test debut in 1928 sold for $290,000 at auction.
That was significantly less than the $650,000 paid for Shane Warne's baggy green when he auctioned it off to benefit Australian wildfire victims earlier that year.
Bradman departed with an all-time high Test batting average of 99.94 and has been dubbed by cricket authority Wisden as the finest to "have ever graced the gentleman's game"
He died in 2001, aged 92.
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