Back up the Brinks truck: Bear Bryant’s personally-owned Houndstooth Hat up for auction
By Keith Farner
Published:
For Alabama fans, there may not be a piece of memorabilia held to a higher place than the Houndstooth Hat worn by legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant.
Now Crimson Tide faithful have a chance to own it themselves thanks to an auction already underway. The starting bid for the hat began at $500 on Wednesday, and it was already over $1,000 by Thursday afternoon. The hat is owned by a furniture salesman. He received it from a friend who owned a hotel.
Here is a description of the item on the auction site:
“Black and white checkered size 7 3/8 hat shows heavy wear with feather in the band, red satin liner with “The Original Paul Bear Bryant” logo in the center and gold replica signature on the sweatband.
Story: The man who willed it to our consignor’s grandfather was a local furniture salesman and he got it as a gift from a friend who owned a hotel. Bryant had left his hat there, the hotel owner called the coach to tell him about it, but the coach said “you could have it” as he had others. Bryant won 14 SEC titles and six National Championships in his quarter-century on the Crimson Tide sideline.”
Lelands is running the auction, which can be found here.
H/T AL.com.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
