You Can Buy a “Significant Lock” of John Lennon’s Hair
A lock of John Lennon’s hair is for sale. (Photo: Getty)
A lock of John Lennon’s hair has hit the auction block and can be yours to take home, but it won’t come cheaply. The current high bid of $12,000 beats the $10,000+ estimate by the Dallas-based auction house, Heritage Auctions. The house claims that this is the “largest lock of Lennon’s hair” ever to be auctioned, estimating that the “overall length of the lock is approximately 4" and likely contains hundreds of strands.”
John Lennon’s “significant lock” of hair can be purchased at auction. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
The lock came from hairdresser Klaus Baruck, who cropped Lennon’s classic Beatles mop-top hairstyle into a shorter look on the set of the German film How I Won the War in 1966, then saving it for 50 years. Lennon’s role as Musketeer Gripweed in the film was his only non-musical acting role, and it was during this film that Lennon started wearing his iconic round glasses, which he continued to wear for the rest of his life. The haircut took place a month after the release of Revolver.
Other items included in the auction give provenance to the lock of hair, such as two newspaper articles dated September 7th and 11th 1966 debuting the “landmark haircut.” The articles include photos of Lennon with his new haircut (looking displeased), Baruck holding locks of Lennon’s hair, and Baruck giving Lennon the haircut. A call sheet from the day’s filming of How I Won the War featuring Lennon’s autograph is also included in the lot. Other items in Heritage Auctions’ Beatles collection include an LP copy of Please Please Me signed by each of the Fab Four, a signed photo of The Beatles performing in Liverpool in December of 1963, and a copy of Yesterday and Today featuring the controversial butcher cover.
John Lennon didn’t seem very happy to ditch his iconic mop-top haircut. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
Historic Beatles paraphernalia have fetched record prices at auction, such as Lennon’s acoustic Gisbon J-160E which he used in the recordings of Please Please Me and With the Beatles ($2.41M) and 100 John Lennon manuscripts including his poetry and drawings for his mid-sixties books In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works ($2.9M), but this may be the most obscure of them all.
Purchasers have sited reasons such as history and pure love for The Beatles as reasons for spending such high amounts on typically unusable merchandise. “The John Lennon guitar used on ‘Paperback Writer’ and other sessions with the Beatles is a significant piece of history,” Colts owner Jim Irsay told Rolling Stone of his record-setting John Lennon guitar purchases. “John Lennon’s guitars are as special as it gets. Instruments like this rarely become available, so anything John Lennon used is some of the most important historical musical archives that exist on the planet.” Irsay also paid $2.2M for Ringo Starr’s drum kit, and has a collection of Beatles instruments. “It took over 4 million dollars and 45 years, but we finally got them back together,” Irsay told Rolling Stone of his instrument purchases. For $3.8M less, John Lennon’s lock of hair could give you a piece of Beatles history but take up much less space in your basement.
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