Collectors spend thousands to buy celebrities’ hair
THE HAIRCUT was like any other. John Lennon was preparing for his role in the film HowIWontheWar. The performance was unmemorable. So too was the coif.
But on Saturday, nearly 50 years after it was chopped from his head, Lennon’s lock of hair sold for $35 000 (R530 614). The clipping garnered triple the amount auctioneers expected it to sell for.
The hair was in high demand by professional hair collectors – because that is an actual business. From George Washington to Justin Bieber, tresses of the famous are bought, sold and showboated across the US.
This lock of Lennon’s wasn’t even the first to go commercial. In 2007, a longer strand sold for $48 000. An unknown bidder purchased it along with a book Lennon signed for the Beatles’ personal hairdresser.
Saturday’s strand went to Paul Fraser, a collector in the UK who has an enormous inventory of art, antiques, stamps and coins.
Fraser believes in investing in irreplaceable objects, bucking the “throwaway culture” of today.
“We live in an age where few products will see next year, never mind the next century. Your new iPad may cost a fair amount, but it won’t survive for long before it is outdated and replaced with the latest gadget,” Fraser once wrote about his love of collecting.
“However, a piece of art has immutable quality. It’s a real, tangible object, that someone has crafted by hand.”
No one has crafted these hairs by hand. They have, of course, grown out of real people’s heads, only to be sliced off and squirrelled away by opportunistic hairdressers, morticians or zealous fans.
Lennon’s bandmate Ringo Starr once had his hair quickly chopped by an 18-year-old girl with a pair of nail scissors at a DC charity ball. Fraser doesn’t own the Ringo hair, but he does own a 1.25cm strand from Beatle Paul McCartney.
He also claims he owns hairs from former US president John Adams, Napoleon Bonaparte, Marilyn Monroe, John Steinbeck, Michael Jackson, Katharine Hepburn, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Taylor, John F Kennedy and Justin Bieber. They’re all for sale online.
The highest price on a swath of hair came from Elvis Presley. It sold for $115 000 in 2002. – Washington Post