[b:2dgqgraw]This is almost as good…four strands of what "may" be Washinton’s hair sold for $17,000.[/b:2dgqgraw] ![Shocked :shock:]()
Strands of hair, possibly George Washington’s, sold for $17,000
Feb 23, 2008 @ 01:30 PM
By The Associated Press
Herald-Dispatch.com
LEXINGTON, Ky. — The auction didn’t get hairy — it wasn’t even a first in the country — but four strands of what may be George Washington’s hair sold at auction for $17,000.
A man from Richmond, Ky., bought the hair during an auction Friday night. The buyer declined to give his name.
Christa Allen, a Colorado woman who once lived in Owsley County, sold them. Allen said she got the hair, which was pressed under glass in a locket and accompanied by a watch, from her father, a Philadelphia attorney.
Jamie Bates, owner of Thompson & Riley, which auctioned the hair, had hoped the auction would bring at least $75,000.
“I’ve never sold George Washington’s hair before; I don’t know,†Bates said before the auction.
Allen told potential buyers how the hair was handed down from person to person since it was clipped from Washington. The Historical Society of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, looked at Allen’s evidence and gave her its backing.
Eric James, president of The James Preservation Trust, discussed the chain of ownership of the hairs from the time Washington was briefly disinterred and his hair snipped in 1837.
While presidential hair sales are rare, its not unheard of.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, celebrity hair procurement was common: People collected snippets of hair as remembrances, making hair wreaths or hair jewelry from the locks of the departed.
But, handicapping a hair sale is tough. Confirming the root of the hair — particularly hair as old as Washington’s — is an exacting process borrowing in equal parts from history, heredity and luck.
Easier for collectors is to follow the lineage of a lock of Elvis Presley’s pompadour.
Allen said she’s holding on to a few strands of Washington’s locks. Allen didn’t give a heads up as to what she planned to do with the hair.