Ché Guevara’s hair up at auction

Got several hundred thousands dollars to spare? Want to woo guests at your next cocktail party or itching to buy an early holiday gift? Then why not buy a lock of Ché Guevara’s hair (image).

A Dallas, Texas auction house is going to sell tonight a 3-inch snippet of the famed revolutionary’s hair which was supposedly cut just before he was buried in 1967. Extra security will be on hand due to harassing e-mails from individuals of “a left-leaning political persuasion”, according to a spokesman for Heritage Auction Galleries.

Politics is the alleged reason behind the auction of the piece of hair along with other artifacts that belonged to the collection of Gustavo Villoldo- a Cuban-born former CIA operative:

“(Villoldo) doesn't like the way Che has become a political icon, so he's anxious to get the whole story out,” (Heritage Auction Galleries’ Tom) Slater told AFP. “He feels that Che was a murderer and a bandit and it was appropriate to hunt him down.”

Previous posts on Guevara's legacy have looked at the revolutionary’s connection to his image in Iraq and Benicio del Toro’s portrayal of Guevara in an upcoming movie.

Sources- BBC News, The Latin Americanist, International Herald Tribune, Tehran Times

Image- Seattle Post-Intelligencer