AirSpaceMag.com

These will cost you $50,000 per lens.

Normally, the folks at Profiles in History, based outside Los Angeles, auction off Hollywood memorabilia. On October 8-9, they’ll sell what they’re billing as “the single most important flight-worn aviation artifact to ever be offered at public auction”—the goggles worn by Amelia Earhart during her 1932 solo crossing of the Atlantic. The auctioneers expect the glasses to go for somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000.

Earhart’s 1932 flight was a vindication of sorts. This time she made the Atlantic crossing alone, not as some other pilot’s passenger. About the goggles, she wrote to aerial cinematographer Ray Fernstrom, “That particular pair are rather historic.  Also they have grown accustomed to me, and cling around my unconventional nose more effectively than new ones.”

Armstrong (right) wearing his $10,000 cap in 1969.

The October auction includes another bit of headgear from a famous pilot—a cap worn by Neil Armstrong during his quarantine on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Hornet following his return from the moon in July 1969. That piece of history is expected to go for only about $10,000. Maybe because there are two others just like it?