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Napoléon’s Black Hat Does Not Come Up Short in Auction

It fetched more than double the presale estimate even though it’s faded and cracked.

Napoleon’s hat

Mohamad Salaheldin Abdelg Alsayed/Anadolu via Getty

A battered hat once worn by Napoléon fetched more than double its estimate at auction—$2.1 million. The buyer is anonymous; the seller is the estate of the late French industrialist Jean-Louis Noisiez. The bicorne hat is made of black felt and is hardly in mint condition; the Associated Press described it as faded and cracked. But interest in Napoléon is running high with the impending release of the Ridley Scott biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix.

Read it at Associated Press

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