This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 12/10/2001.
These five strands of Abraham Lincoln's hair have been preserved as diligently and meticulously as have any other of our 16th President's possessions, including his porkpipe hat. This is partly owing to the fact that any Lincoln memorabilia has been coveted as an inspiration to people ever since his assassination by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater on April 14,1865, but especially because the hairs were taken from Lincoln's head mere moments before he died, removed by surgeons trying to acess the gaping wound to his head. When the hair was removed it was blood-soaked and traces of blood remain even now, after a 135-year journey through time when the lock was obtained by various people after being originally given to friends by Lincoln's widow. These include Dr. Charles Taft, another surgeon tending to Lincoln and John Hay, Lincoln's assistant who eventually gave six strands inside a ring to President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1908 Taft reaquired the hair and sold it to William H. Lambert for $100 in a highly-publicized transaction covered in newspapers. Lambert kept the lock in a gold box. Upon his death in 1914 the box and hair was sold in an auction to Henry C. Hines, in whose estate it stayed until 1993 when it was discovered among his belongings. The five remaining hairs are mounted on a sheet of paper containing a b&w picture of Lincoln and a sad color rendering of the deathbed scene. The lock comes with substantial documentation including a letter of authenticity and copies of letters from Taft and Lambert detailing its sales and photocopies of the gold box the hair had been encased in.