Bidding for Sir Donald Bradman's first baggy green cap has ended well below expectations and for much less than the record for one belonging to the legendary Australian cricketer.
An online auction for the 1928 cap ended on Thursday night with a $A391,500 bid.
Auctioneers had hoped to attract between $A1 million and $A2 million for the cap, which is being sold to pay creditors of the owner, former bankrupt Adelaide accountant and convicted fraudster Peter Dunham.
Sir Don Bradman's first test cap - bids fell well short of what the piece of Australian cricket memorabilia was expected to go for. Photo: Pickles Auctions
Gavin Dempsey from auction house Pickles said he was "awaiting instruction" on the sale.
The current record price for a baggy green is just over $A1 million, for Shane Warne's Test cap.
All the bidders for Bradman's cap were from Australia.
The cap is not allowed to leave the country because it is covered by the federal Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act.
Bradman received his first baggy green well before the modern tradition of Test cricketers retaining a single cap throughout their careers was established.
He made his Test debut against England in Brisbane in 1928, scoring 18 and 1 - a return that would see him dropped for the only time in his career, before he was selected again two matches later and rewarded selectors with a maiden century.
Dunham, who is now in prison, was gifted the cap when he was a young neighbour of Bradman's in Adelaide's eastern suburbs.
Bradman had been friends with Dunham's mother, who died in 1964.
The cap had been kept at the State Library of South Australia as part of its Bradman Collection.
-ABC
