Piece of Abraham Lincoln's Hair Just Sold For $81,000: Is A Weird Purchase
A lock of President Abraham Lincoln's hair and a telegram smeared with his blood sold for more than $81,000 at auction.
The historic items sold at an auction that ended Saturday, according to Boston-based RR Auction. The buyer has chosen to remain anonymous, a spokesman for the auction house said.
A 2-inch lock of the president's hair was clipped during a postmortem examination a day after he was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.
The hair was given to Dr. Lyman Beecher Todd, a cousin of first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, according to the auction house.
Having nothing to wrap the lock of hair with, Todd reached into his pocket and used a War Department telegram sent soon after the president was shot.
"He wrapped the lock, stained with blood or brain fluid, in this telegram and hastily wrote on it in pencil: 'Hair of A. Lincoln,'" Todd's son wrote in a caption.
Full story here.
This one tore me up for a while. By a while, I mean five minutes. ‘The buyer wanted to remain anonymous’ of course they fucking did! You’ve got to be a REAL freak to buy this. This is not the reputation you awnt, especially during a time where having sex is out but online dating and googling each other is in. I apologize to all of the history-enthusiasts out there that’d pay that amount of money for something we’d straight up shun you for in any sane community. When looking at a historical ‘artifact’ like this, just like the antiquated ‘hot vs. crazy’ scale that got tossed around high school locker rooms back when we were bad people, there’s a scale that encompasses the relationship between ‘cool to have’ and ‘weird’. This lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair, cut from his dead head, is firmly on the wrong side of that scale.
Is it made weirder by the fact that it got cut from his head after he died? I’d argue yes. And let’s stick with that for a second. Having someone’s hair is weird. Hands down. No argument against it, it’s a weird fucking move. I don’t care who’s fucking head it came from, I know that you shouldn’t have it. This compounded by the fact that it’s not the only thing in the package. It comes with a bloodstained telegram! As you read, it probably has Lincoln’s brain on it! Why not just keep that and lose the tuft of dead guy hair. You still end up with a cool artifact and we no longer have to worry about ending up in your closet. It’s still weird to have the telegram but it’s seems SO MUCH MORE NORMAL than a lock from #16.
It also needs to be said: kind of a crazy move for the Lincoln family to sell the hair, no? I mean it’s been in your family for a 150 years, and you decide now’s the time to sell that to someone who’s not a museum? Weird move. Normal for them to keep the hair- but that’s where the statute of limitations ends on not being someone I avoid buying a house next to. Normal (ish) to have your great-great-great grandpa’s bloodstained hair; weird move to sell it.
