The combination of Sir Donald Bradman's fabled brilliance and the baggy green's near-mythical status has persuaded an Australian to part with nearly half-a-million dollars for one of the Don's Test caps.
Unlike modern Australian players the Test cricketers of Bradman's era wore a different cap for each series, so the one worn by Bradman during the 1947-48 home summer against India is far from unique, but it has nevertheless sold at auction for $479,700, a record for a cap worn by the great batter.
The sum is less than half that raised when Shane Warne's cap was sold in aid of emergency services responding to the 2019-20 bushfires, which was bought by the Commonwealth Bank for $1,007,500, but Warne only wore the one cap.
Bradman's first cap, from his 1928 debut season, was sold for $450,000 in 2020 and the one he wore on his last tour, to England in 1948, went for $425,000 in 2003 - and was later resold for an undisclosed amount, believed to be around $400,000 in 2008.
Bradman wore the baggy green sold on Tuesday in Sydney during India's first tour as an independent country, and his last on home soil.
He scored 715 runs in six innings at an average of 178.75, becoming the only Australian player to score 100 first-class centuries during the process, as Australia won 4-0.
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