The most personal of artefacts

Across cultures and centuries hair has carried meaning: power, identity, faith, grief, devotion and today, increasingly, serious collector value. No other collectible offers the same combination of biological intimacy and historical reach.

Hair as a sacred object

The significance of hair as a relic predates collecting as a hobby by centuries. In Christianity, the Catholic Church has preserved hair from saints and martyrs since the medieval period, enshrining them in elaborate reliquaries. Monarchs wore jewellery containing relics for protection. The hair of St Mary Magdalene is kept at the Basilica of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in France, visited by pilgrims to this day. After the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, his hair was distributed to churches around the world.

In Catholic tradition, relics are formally classified. First-class relics include body parts such as bones or hair. Second-class relics are objects used by a saint. Third-class relics are objects that have touched a first-class relic.

In Islam, relics of the Prophet Muhammad's hair are preserved in at least 52 locations worldwide, including the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, where they are displayed on special occasions and draw large numbers of the faithful. 

In Buddhism, hair relics of the Buddha rank among the most venerated objects in the faith. The Shwedagon Pagoda in Myanmar is believed to house eight locks of the Buddha's hair and draws tens of thousands of pilgrims each year. For many Buddhist communities, the preservation of hair relics symbolises the continuity of spiritual teaching.

Where secular collecting began: the Victorians

Hair collecting as a conscious secular pursuit began with the Victorians, who prized long hair as a symbol of femininity and sentiment. Predating the photograph and more intimate than an autograph, a lock was the closest physical connection a person could have with someone they admired, mourned or loved.

Hair was not simply kept. It was worked: braided, woven, twisted, curled, arranged and mounted. Queen Victoria's extended mourning for Prince Albert brought hair jewellery and mourning objects into fashionable society and kept them there. She described Empress Eugenie of France as "touched to tears when I gave her a bracelet with my hair."

"More so than an autograph, it was a sign of affection," said Harry Rubenstein, a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

When King George IV died in 1830, the Duke of Wellington reported finding "a prodigious quantity of hair, women's hair, all colours and lengths, some locks with powder and pomatum still sticking to them" among his possessions. The hobby was equally popular among the French aristocracy until the execution of Louis XVI brought it an unwelcome association. In 1998, a lock of his hair, rescued by a drummer at the beheading, sold for $5,536.

America takes it further

The colonies adopted hair collecting readily. Soldiers departing for war left locks with their families.

General Custer, famed for his flowing golden curls, his troops called him Ringlets, is said to have shaved his head before the Battle of Little Bighorn to avoid scalping, giving the locks to his wife Libby before riding out.

A braided lock of those blonde curls sold for $21,510 in June 2013.

The science inside the strand

Hair carries biological information that has rewritten what we know about certain historical figures.

• DNA tests on Thomas Jefferson's hair confirmed he fathered a child with one of his slaves
• Analysis of Napoleon Bonaparte's hair revealed elevated arsenic levels, reigniting debate about whether he was poisoned or simply exposed to environmental contamination
• Beethoven's hair told a similar story: research in 2000 identified high levels of lead, offering a plausible explanation for his chronic illness and possible deafness. Demand for Beethoven's hair at his deathbed was so intense that he was near bald by the time he died, each visitor having taken a snippet. A small amount of his hair has since been converted into a diamond, which attracted bids of $202,000 on eBay.

The celebrity market

In the early twentieth century, the cult of celebrity arrived and brought a new category of collector with it. Silent film star Mary Pickford, known as The Girl with the Curls, auctioned one of her ringlets for $15,000 during the First World War while promoting Liberty Bonds alongside Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.

Today the market is substantial and still growing. Elvis Presley's 1958 army haircut at Fort Chaffee remains one of the most documented moments in rock and roll history. 

The appeal is not difficult to understand

Hair is biological and singular. It cannot be reproduced, replicated or faked in the way a signed photograph or printed document can. Every lock in a serious collection was once part of a living person, and that fact does not diminish with time.

As collector interest has grown, so have the values. The combination of finite supply, documented provenance and sustained demand places the finest examples of celebrity and historical hair in a market that continues to move in one direction.