Bushranger Ned Kelly's armour goes under the hammer

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - Ned Kelly, bushranger and self-styled revolutionary, would spin in his grave.

This month well-heeled collectors from the establishment he despised are expected to pay up to $A250,000 ($313,885) for one of the few remnants of his life to remain outside an institution.

Kelly's stolen skull is reputedly stored in a tin box hidden in remote northwestern Australia and his bloodstained cummerbund is on display in the Victorian country town of Benalla, where the wounded outlaw was held for a night on his way to Melbourne.

On July 31 the last privately owned piece of his armour will go under the hammer, with strong interest from Ireland - where Kelly and Eureka Stockade leader Peter Lawler now feature on stamps celebrating Irish rebels - and the United States, where he is likened to Billy the Kid, another doomed Irish outlaw.

Kelly, with brother Dan and friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, gained cult immortality after a criminal career climaxed with the June 1880 shootout with police at Glenrowan, north of Melbourne, in which they wore the famous 40kg-a-suit armour.

Loathed by authorities as a murdering outlaw but revered by admirers as an anti-establishment hero, Kelly was hanged the following November in Melbourne.

The remnant to be auctioned by Christies is a 3kg shoulder guard, shot from Kelly by Constable Patrick Gascoyne, who hid it from officials and passed it down through three generations before it was sold in 1970.

Christies is also selling the only known oil portrait of Kelly, painted by an unknown artist and featuring his grey mare Music, whose mythology almost matches his owner's. Music tried to take Kelly from Glenrowan, was shot and fell, but rose to race off and vanish into legend.

Also for sale is one of only two copies of the famous letter Kelly dictated to Byrne, to justify his life.