Proving that collectors will pay lots of money for the most unusual objects -- as if it needed proving -- a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair has sold at auction for $25,000.
A lock of the assassinated president's hair along with objects linked to his assassin, John Wilkes Booth, were part of a private collection of Lincoln memorabilia that sold for a total of $803,889 at an auction in Dallas.
U.S. Surgeon General Joseph Barnes removed the lock of hair shortly after Booth shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865.
It was part of a collection belonging to history enthusiast Donald Dow of Fort Worth that was considered one of the premiere collections of Lincoln memorabilia in private hands, officials with Heritage Auctions said.
A letter signed by Booth -- boasting of his career and success as an actor and sent to a friend in 1861 -- sold for $30,000, and his military arrest warrant brought $21,250.
The Booth letter in particular brought a high price because "the public was so disgusted by Booth's atrocity that most all letters, signatures and documents mentioning him were destroyed after Lincoln's death, making any that survive 150 years later exceedingly rare and valuable," said Heritage Auction official Don Ackerman.
The identities of buyers of the items in the collection, which sold for about twice the expected total sum, were not released.
Dow, who died 5 years ago, began the collection in 1963, eventually amassing more than 300 items of Lincoln memorabilia.
The time had come "for other collectors to have a chance to enjoy it," said his son Greg Dow.
Other items in the auction included a bloodstained piece of linen taken from the president's death bed that sold for $6,000, and a framed set of photographs and autographs of Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth and Boston Corbett, the Union soldier who shot and killed Booth -- a display known as "The Martyr, The Assassin and The Avenger" -- which went for $30,000.
A White House Funeral Admittance Card, in a frame, sold for $11,875 while a letter from Lincoln's widow Mary Todd Lincoln written on her personal mourning stationery brought $10,625.
A letter written to a Baltimore lawyer by Lincoln in which the president admitted the Civil War was not going well at that point remained unsold.
"The Dow Collection gave us a unique perspective of the assassination and I doubt we'll ever see a grouping like this outside of a museum setting," Ackerman said.
