A Handful of Folicles

Other than as status symbol/conspicuous consumption I don’t get the whole celebrity artifact craze: Kurt Cobain’s boyhood home sold for a $150K premium last month, but from the relic standpoint, at this one is an actual piece of Elvis. I mean when the technology catches up, you can clone the dude:

Elvis Presley had it all–the looks, the voice, the moves, the sex appeal, and yes, the hair. Fans will get an opportunity to own some of Presley’s silky black locks when the clippings go up for grabs in an online auction Monday (October 28) on mastronet.com.

This is said to be the largest collection of Presley’s hair, gathered for years by his personal hair stylist of 20 years, Homer “Gill” Gilleland. Five years ago, Gilleland gave the collection to friend Tom Morgan Jr., who has decided to part (no pun intended) with the strands.

Of the lot, the auction’s site says: “These are not just the usual few strands of hair which collectors normally have to settle for when rare opportunities such as this arise, but an enormous pile of clippings (approximately the size of a baseball) which were obtained directly by our consignor, Tom Morgan Jr., from Elvis’s personal barber, Homer ‘Gill’ Gilleland.”

Hair from a “King” doesn’t come cheap–the bidding starts at $10,000.

Yeah, but you get real DNA: 100 years from now this will be worth a hell of a lot more than a gold Elvis suit, or possibly even Graceland for the matter.