Not only their music has been making millions for 50 years, now the hair of Rolling Stones pair Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is also worth a fortune.
A lock of Mick Jagger’s hair is up for sale at auction house Bonhams next month with a guide price of between $2,400 and $3,000. Meanwhile, a clump of Keith Richards’s mop has just sold for $1,400.
Mick Jagger’s hair was snipped from his mane in the early 1960s and kept by relatives of one of his first girlfriends, Chrissie Shrimpton, a Covent Garden secretary he famously dated while a student at the London School of Economics.
Their romance marked a period when Mick Jagger lived with fellow Stone Keith Richards in Mapesbury Road, Kilburn, and then Holly Hill, Hampstead. Chrissie Shrimpton, sister of model Jean Shrimpton, lived with the two rockers.
The lovers got engaged and moved into a mansion block in Regent’s Park before Sir Mick – just plain old Mick Jagger back then – backed away and they split up without reaching the altar.
The guide price for the lock of hair is between $2,400 and $3,000. It is among a large collection of music and movie memorabilia, amassed from different sources, being sold by the famous auction house in Knightsbridge.
The brown hair comes in “a small paper envelope” with a statement of provenance to reassure doubters.
Bonhams’ catalogue guide says: “The statement from Chrissie Shrimpton confirms that, unbeknown to her at the time, this lock was saved by her grandmother when Mick and Chrissie were staying at her parents’ farm.
“Apparently, on her grandmother’s death, the hair passed to Chrissie’s aunt.
“When she died, the hair was returned to Chrissie by a cousin taking care of personal effects.”
Money raised from the sale of the hair will go to Changing Faces, a charity which supports people with disfigurements.
Also among the lots is an “automated” tweeting birdcage which Mick Jagger gave to Chrissie Shrimpton on her 21st birthday. The relationship with Chrissie Shrimpton, now 67, ran from 1963 to 1966. The auction in Knightsbridge is on July 3.
The clump of Keith Richards’s hair was cut from his head by 16-year-old fan Maggie Richardson in the Stones’ dressing room in Preston, Lancashire, in 1964.
