Strands Of JFK’s Hair Set For Auction At Carter Center Fundraiser
For the first time, the Carter Center will auction off strands of human hair from a celebrity or historical figure.
Courtesy of Ben Mair / The Carter Center
For Ben Mair, the pair of Jimmy Carter’s well-worn running shoes up for sale, along with Abraham Lincoln’s autograph, didn’t have the same effect as the slim, brown hairs slightly curled up in the one-and-a-half inch compartment at the bottom of a framed portrait of John F. Kennedy.
The hairs – about six of them total – made Mair think in a special way about the president assassinated in 1963.
“It certainly adds a very human quality to the piece,” Mair said.
The Atlanta-based Carter Center on Saturday will auction a few strands of Kennedy’s hair, along with an autograph and portrait of the former president, estimated to be worth $4,900. Kennedy’s hair has been sold before, and the sale of hair from celebrities and historical figures is not uncommon, but it will be a first for the Carter Center, Mair said, a conference coordinator with the nonprofit.
Money raised from the auction will go into the Carter Center’s general fund to be used on health care, peace, conflict resolution, and election monitoring programs, Mair said
The hair was donated by Dan Ostrander who told the Carter Center he also owns hair from former presidents Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton. Ostrander told the center the Kennedy hair up for auction was originally obtained by a White House barber.
“So, when Kennedy actually got his hair cut, the barber asked if he could take some of his hair and he said ‘OK,’” Mair said. “That I hear is apparently not too uncommon, so I think that’s how he got Bill Clinton’s hair as well.”
Keeping hair from the dead is not a new phenomenon.
“Locks of the deceased’s hair were keepsakes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,” Australian National University emeritus professor Pat Jalland wrote in an email. “Lockets containing hair were commonly worn as commemorative jewelry during and after formal mourning, and remained as remembrances.”
Jalland is author of the book, “Death In the Victorian Family.”
“One hundred or 150 years ago if somebody famous came to town — let’s say Robert E. Lee — you didn’t necessarily ask for his autograph, you said could I have a snippet of your hair,” said John Reznikoff, a collectable authenticator based in Connecticut.
Reznikoff said he possesses hair from 150 celebrities and historical figures including Lincoln, George Washington, Edgar Allan Poe, Marilyn Monroe, and Michael Jackson.
“An autograph is nice,” he said. “But an actual piece of the person’s being — you can’t get much closer than that.”
Unlike other parts of the human body, hair can take hundreds of years to decay, according to Reznikoff, who keeps his collection in filing cabinets in a vault.
“I bet you your mom has a lock of your baby hair stowed away somewhere,” he said.
Reznikoff said he often fields calls and requests from people who want to conduct DNA tests using the hair in his collection, and he tries to vet these requests carefully.
“I joke about the Jurassic Park mentality,” said Reznikoff. “Maybe it’s 50 years from now or a hundred years from now — with the samples in my collection — perhaps there’s a cocktail party with all the most famous people in history. I guess anything’s possible.”
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