Collecting Hair

I love collecting things but I haven’t started my Hair Collection. I heard on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio that a baseball size clump of Elvis Presley’s hair had sold at auction for over $72,000 dollars.

It seems that his friend and longtime hairstylist, Homer “Gill” Gilleland, had saved the hair, in a sealed jar, for over 50 years. John Reznikoff is a collector of hair from famous people like Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe. In 2007, a company named LifeGem created a diamond from a lock of Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair that was in Reznikoff’s collection. They even sell value packs ($600) with strands from such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Justin Bieber, Paul McCartney, Maria Callas, Katherine Hepburn, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.

It is an obscure hobby but collecting hair from political figures, musicians, entertainers and even animals is not as rare as you might think. This photo is from a Wooly Mammoth and sold for $3,585. While celebrities usually know their hair is being kept for possible future sale some like Neil Armstrong’s hair sold without his knowledge. There are origins back to the Victorian Era where people would collect hair as a way to remember loved ones who had passed.

They would turn the hair into jewelry to be able to wear and keep their loved ones close. Victorian’s wore bracelets, rings, watches, necklaces, brooches and buttons — all made from hair.

Paul Fraser, from Bristol, is a collector and seller. He collects the ones mentioned above and also has others like JFK and John Adams. He has a strand of hair from Elvis’ Army haircut. His highest selling hair is from Monroe and Presley.