Gold-ilocks: Firm to auction famous follicles
It's a case of hair today gone tomorrow.
That's what a west suburban auction house is hoping for, anyway, as it prepares to sell locks of hair from a number of American notables, including the late baseball star Mickey Mantle, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor.
Even Brian Marren, a vice president with Mastro Auctions of Willowbrook, says his wife finds collecting hair "kind of ghoulish,'' but the practice has been around for hundreds of years: A clump of Ben Franklin's was sold in 1927. During the Civil War, women would snip a lock from battle-bound loved ones.
Now, though, advances in DNA research is proving to be the Propecia of the market, some experts say. For some collectors, it's a speculator's market based on the next frontier of science.
Might a strand of hair someday be used to clone a baby with the looks of Marilyn Monroe? Or a kid with the athleticism of a Michael Jordan? Or, as John Reznikoff, one of the nation's foremost hair collectors, puts it: "If I want a smart child, could I take some Albert Einstein and mix it in the child-making process?''
No -- the science isn't here. Yet.
But Reznikoff, noting that DNA research and development is moving at a rapid pace, says hair collecting "has unbelievable potential.'' And few would benefit more than he: Einstein is part of Reznikoff's collection of some 120 notable figures, a collection he calls "a DNA catalog" that also includes locks from George and Martha Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, Charles Dickens, Ludwig van Beethoven and Frederic Chopin.
Reznikoff, the 45-year-old president of Connecticut-based University Archives, which deals primarily in historical documents and manuscripts, describes a "Jurassic Park mentality" driving some collectors, a reference to the novel and film about dinosaurs cloned for an amusement park.
Even though there is no current way to use hair to clone a human, the DNA does have value to some collectors. Last year, a lock of Queen Victoria's hair was bought by an anonymous Austrian bidder for $119,000. The European press speculated that the hair of Victoria, the grandmother or great-grandmother of most of the crowned heads of Europe, could be used to help support modern-day claims of royalty through DNA testing.
'What you discard is discarded'
The celebrity hair in the Mastro Auctions online sale, which is scheduled for April, came from the estate of Robert Champion, a "hairdresser of the stars'' in New York and Hollywood. Mantle's hair came from a former business manager.
Celebrities sometimes balk at the sales. Mantle's family initially resisted when the hair first went on the market in 1997, but later relented. (It was sold for $6,900.) Reznikoff clashed with Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, when he purchased, for a reported $3,000, Armstrong's hair from the former astronaut's barber. Reznikoff still has the hair. "What you discard is discarded,'' said Reznikoff.
Legally, that may be true. But in regard to uses of the DNA inside that discarded material, "the law in uncertain,'' said Lori B. Andrews, the director of the Institute of Science, Law and Technology at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Bard none: Shakespeare No. 1
Andrews, the author of The Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology, said "ethicists and lawyers are working to catch up'' with science as it rushes into the future.
Even if one was able to use, say, Einstein's DNA to clone another human being, the only sure thing is that the clone would look a little like Einstein.
Some ethicists who have weighed in on cloning of deceased individuals have concluded that it would be improper because it would make one a parent -- even dead -- without his or her consent.
Mastro auctioned a clump of Elvis Presley's hair in 2002 for $115,000. Reznikoff said his most valuable hair artifact is a lock from Lincoln removed on the night of his assassination. He estimates its value is $500,000. Minimum.
Reznikoff helped Mastro Auctions authenticate Mantle's hair and hopes to add it to his collection.
It'll make a nice addition but it is not the Holy Grail of hair.
"There is a rumor that there is some of Shakespeare's hair out there. I'd pay dearly for that,'' said Reznikoff.
That's what a west suburban auction house is hoping for, anyway, as it prepares to sell locks of hair from a number of American notables, including the late baseball star Mickey Mantle, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor.
Even Brian Marren, a vice president with Mastro Auctions of Willowbrook, says his wife finds collecting hair "kind of ghoulish,'' but the practice has been around for hundreds of years: A clump of Ben Franklin's was sold in 1927. During the Civil War, women would snip a lock from battle-bound loved ones.
Now, though, advances in DNA research is proving to be the Propecia of the market, some experts say. For some collectors, it's a speculator's market based on the next frontier of science.
Might a strand of hair someday be used to clone a baby with the looks of Marilyn Monroe? Or a kid with the athleticism of a Michael Jordan? Or, as John Reznikoff, one of the nation's foremost hair collectors, puts it: "If I want a smart child, could I take some Albert Einstein and mix it in the child-making process?''
No -- the science isn't here. Yet.
But Reznikoff, noting that DNA research and development is moving at a rapid pace, says hair collecting "has unbelievable potential.'' And few would benefit more than he: Einstein is part of Reznikoff's collection of some 120 notable figures, a collection he calls "a DNA catalog" that also includes locks from George and Martha Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, Charles Dickens, Ludwig van Beethoven and Frederic Chopin.
Reznikoff, the 45-year-old president of Connecticut-based University Archives, which deals primarily in historical documents and manuscripts, describes a "Jurassic Park mentality" driving some collectors, a reference to the novel and film about dinosaurs cloned for an amusement park.
Even though there is no current way to use hair to clone a human, the DNA does have value to some collectors. Last year, a lock of Queen Victoria's hair was bought by an anonymous Austrian bidder for $119,000. The European press speculated that the hair of Victoria, the grandmother or great-grandmother of most of the crowned heads of Europe, could be used to help support modern-day claims of royalty through DNA testing.
'What you discard is discarded'
The celebrity hair in the Mastro Auctions online sale, which is scheduled for April, came from the estate of Robert Champion, a "hairdresser of the stars'' in New York and Hollywood. Mantle's hair came from a former business manager.
Celebrities sometimes balk at the sales. Mantle's family initially resisted when the hair first went on the market in 1997, but later relented. (It was sold for $6,900.) Reznikoff clashed with Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, when he purchased, for a reported $3,000, Armstrong's hair from the former astronaut's barber. Reznikoff still has the hair. "What you discard is discarded,'' said Reznikoff.
Legally, that may be true. But in regard to uses of the DNA inside that discarded material, "the law in uncertain,'' said Lori B. Andrews, the director of the Institute of Science, Law and Technology at the Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Bard none: Shakespeare No. 1
Andrews, the author of The Clone Age: Adventures in the New World of Reproductive Technology, said "ethicists and lawyers are working to catch up'' with science as it rushes into the future.
Even if one was able to use, say, Einstein's DNA to clone another human being, the only sure thing is that the clone would look a little like Einstein.
Some ethicists who have weighed in on cloning of deceased individuals have concluded that it would be improper because it would make one a parent -- even dead -- without his or her consent.
Mastro auctioned a clump of Elvis Presley's hair in 2002 for $115,000. Reznikoff said his most valuable hair artifact is a lock from Lincoln removed on the night of his assassination. He estimates its value is $500,000. Minimum.
Reznikoff helped Mastro Auctions authenticate Mantle's hair and hopes to add it to his collection.
It'll make a nice addition but it is not the Holy Grail of hair.
"There is a rumor that there is some of Shakespeare's hair out there. I'd pay dearly for that,'' said Reznikoff.
posted by Mr Farnham at
3:57 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home