Auction of Elvis Presley memorabilia, including his hair

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 3:43:00 PM | Comments (0)

Parameter is not valid.

CHICAGO: The King may be dead, but that doesn't mean it's too late to run your fingers through his hair.

Elvis Presley's hair, well at least a clump of hair that Presley may have lost to an Army barber when he went into the service back in 1958, was on display in Chicago on Monday, ahead of a major auction to be held this coming Sunday.

The hair is part of a collection of more than 200 items that belonged to or are associated with Presley.

There are clothes he wore, including still sweat stained scarves he threw to screaming fans, as well as records, rare photos and portraits, as well as other sorts of memorabilia such as Elvis dolls and even Elvis Pez dispensers.

All the items belonged to the former president of a Presley fan club Gary Pepper.

Pepper, who had cerebral palsy, died in 1980, three years after Presley, and left his collection to his nurse, who is now putting the items up for auction.

Like a lot of the items in Pepper's collection, the hair was a gift from Presley to Pepper, who in turn sent a strand or two to appreciative Presley fans from time to time but didn't come close to exhausting his supply.

A spokeswoman for Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Mary Williams, said Pepper died without telling anyone exactly where the hair came from or when it was cut.

"Because of the amount of items that Gary had in the 60's from Elvis' army days, we believe it's from the US Army haircut" Williams said at the auction house on Monday.

"That would have been an iconic time that Gary could have received a large amount of Elvis' hair."

Williams also said that while there has never been a DNA test done on the hair the auction house did take it to somewhat of "a hair authenticator" who compared it to his own sample of Presley's hair and concluded it was the real deal.

The auction house estimates that the hair could sell for between 8 to 12 thousand US dollars however a large collection of Presley's hair was recently sold for 115 thousand US dollars.

"There's an interest in owning a piece of a celebrity," William said.

What exactly the lucky collector will do with the hair is anyone's guess, although there has been talk of future cloning. AGENCIES