Over the last couple of years, memorabilia from the life and career of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain has been breaking records at auction. In 2019, his green mohair cardigan worn during the band’s iconic MTV Unplugged performance sold for $334,000 (just over £260,000), while his guitar from the same show fetched over $6 million just a year later.
Now, something even more personal is set to hit the auction block: six strands of Cobain’s blonde hair, which has become synonymous with his grungy aesthetic.
Going up for sale via Iconic Auctions, the lock of hair was cut ahead of the band’s breakthrough with Nevermind, on their 1989 tour for the aptly-named Bleach. Apparently, it was kept by “an early confidant”, Tessa Osbourne, who can be seen giving him a haircut in photos from the period.
“Tessa had known Kurt back in England, and they had hung out during the Bleach tour,” the listing explains. “She must have had a sense that Kurt would become a musical force.”
After Cobain’s passing in 1994, the hair was passed on to Seattle artist Nicole DePolo as a gift, and has since been transferred to John Reznikoff, the world’s “foremost hair collector and expert” (we’ll take their word for it). Bidding for the new sale, which began May 6, starts at $2,500.
In more Nirvana news, the band has recently been hit with a lawsuit over a Dante’s “Inferno”-inspired design that has appeared on its merchandise as far back as 1989. An heir of the late British artist C. W. Scott-Giles claims that the band ripped off an image her grandfather designed back in 1949, which depicts the circles of hell.