Catherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, managed to keep not only her head but also her hair, a reputed lock of which brought £2,160 ($4,200) at Bonhams London in January. The golden strands mounted in an oval frame with a note bearing the date and location of Parr’s death, attracted a whopping 32 commission bids. The lucky winner was Charles Hudson, who paid more than 10 times the high estimate to return the item to its roots—Wick Estate, his home in central England, which had been a gift to Parr from the king. Still, the price showed that blonde is not always better: When a lock of Charles Dickens’s dark brown hair came up for sale at Bonhams in 2005, it made £3,120 ($5,970).

"All's Hair in Love and War" originally appeared in the March 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's March 2008 Table of Contents.