Hope they smell like teen spirit! SIX of Kurt Cobain’s HAIR STRANDS sell for whopping $14K at auction
- Six strands of the legendary frontman’s signature long blonde hair sold for a whopping $14,145 in an auction by Iconic Auctions
- According to the auction house, he longest strand is only about 2.5 inches which is pretty wild considering each strand was sold for $2,357.50 a piece
- According to the listing, the strands came at a very interesting time as they were cut just four months after the release of Nirvana’s first album Bleach and years before they became the biggest rock band in the world
- The locks came from his friend and early confidant, Tessa Osbourne, who cut his hair in Birmingham, England back on October 29, 1989
- Last year Goldin Auctions obtained the Chase Bank insurance company letter for the Seattle home where Nirvana frontman Kurt died by suicide in 1994 and which was signed with his full name, Kurt D. Cobain, just 74 days before his death
- It eventually sold for a whopping $18,000
- Cobain’s acoustic guitar from Nirvana’s iconic 1993 ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ performance sold for a record-breaking $6 million at auction in June 2020
Nirvana famously paid just $606.17 for the studios sessions in recording their debut album Bleach which was released in June 1989.
And nearly 32 years later, a few strands of Kurt Cobain’s hair raked in 23-times that amount.
Six strands of the legendary frontman’s signature long blonde hair sold for a whopping $14,145 in an auction by Iconic Auctions.
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Rock history: Six strands of the Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s (seen in December 1989) signature long blonde hair sold for a whopping $14,145 in an auction by Iconic Auctions
Hope they smell like teen spirit: The hairs are preserved and kept together inside of a plastic which is about the size of a coaster
According to the auction house, he longest strand is only about 2.5 inches which is pretty wild considering each strand was sold for $2,357.50 a piece.
The hairs are preserved and kept together inside of a plastic which is about the size of a coaster.
According to the listing, the strands came at a very interesting time as they were cut just four months after the release of Nirvana’s first album Bleach and years before they became the biggest rock band in the world.
The locks came from his friend and early confidant, Tessa Osbourne, who cut his hair in Birmingham, England back on October 29, 1989.
The Man Who Sold The World: According to the listing, the strands came at a very interesting time as they were cut just four months after the release of Nirvana’s first album Bleach and years before they became the biggest rock band in the world
In Bloom: The locks came from his friend and early confidant, Tessa Osbourne, who cut his hair in Birmingham, England back on October 29, 1989 (he is seen months later in New York City back in December 1989)
The item came with a detailed two-page provenance affidavit signed by Seattle artist Nicole DePolo as part of it read: ‘Tessa had known Kurt back in England, and they had hung out during the Bleach Tour. Nirvana had broken in England first, and she must have had a sense that Kurt would become a musical force.
‘When it came to Kurt, Tessa was kind of what like Astrid Kirchherr had been to the Beatles—the woman who had given him his iconic haircut. She even had a series of pictures to prove it: a snapshot of her and Kurt with long straggly hair while she held a pair of scissors high, then a shot of the scissors going through about 7″ of hair. The rest was history.
‘Kurt was known for his bleached blond pageboy, and she’d given him his first one back in October of 1989, just before his image began to circulate throughout the world.’
Included in the lot was a photo of Tessa with the artist as she smiled with scissors in hand as Cobain wrapped his arm around her.
Tessa kept the hair strands in a bag until she gave it to DePolo after Kurt’s death before he passed it along to John Reznikoff who has the Guiness Book world record for ‘largest collection of historic hair.’
The item came with a detailed two-page provenance affidavit signed by Seattle artist Nicole DePolo as part of it read: ‘Tessa had known Kurt back in England, and they had hung out during the Bleach Tour. Nirvana had broken in England first, and she must have had a sense that Kurt would become a musical force’
Proof: Included in the lot was a photo of Tessa with the artist as she smiled with scissors in hand as Cobain wrapped his arm around her
Anything that has to with the Nirvana legend is sure to fetch big money as last year Goldin Auctions obtained the Chase Bank insurance company letter for the Seattle home where Nirvana frontman Kurt died by suicide in 1994 and which was signed with his full name, Kurt D. Cobain, just 74 days before his death.
It was seen to be as a rare item as Cobain rarely signed his full name on any documents.
It eventually sold for a whopping $18,000.
Before that, Cobain’s acoustic guitar from Nirvana’s iconic 1993 ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ performance sold for a record-breaking $6 million at auction in June 2020.
Still selling: Just last year a home insurance policy signed by Cobain was sold for $18,000. Seen with his wife Courtney Love and their daughter Frances Bean in 1993
Worth a lot: Goldin Auctions have obtained the Chase Bank insurance company letter for the Seattle home where Nirvana frontman Kurt died by suicide in 1994 and which was signed with his full name, Kurt D. Cobain, just 74 days before his death
Details: The lot includes several photographs showing what the house – which caught fire in 2016 – looked like when it was originally built
The real deal: The letter is unusual, as Kurt rarely signed his full name on any documents. TMZ reported that Inscriptagraphs Memorabilia, which owns the letter, is planning to donate a portion of the proceeds to a suicide prevention charity
The 1959 Martin D-18E – which was often out of tune – was expected to fetch between $1million and $2 million at the online ‘Music Icons’ sale hosted by Julien’s Auctions, but it ended up breaking the record for the most expensive guitar.
The lot came with the guitar case the ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ group’s late frontman Kurt used, which has a poster of Poison Idea’s album ‘Feel the Darkness’ on it, whilst inside is a bunch of guitar strings, picks and a ‘stash’ bag.
Kurt married Courtney Love of Hole fame in 1992; together they had daughter Frances Bean who is now 27-years-old.
All Apologies: Meanwhile, Cobain’s acoustic guitar from Nirvana’s iconic 1993 ‘MTV Unplugged in New York’ performance sold for a record-breaking $6 million at auction in June 2020; seen in 1993
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