You Could Own the Hair of the Man Who Stopped Napoleon

A braid of hair taken from the head of a man considered a British hero for preventing Napoleon's planned invasion of the country some 200 years ago is heading to auction. The dark braid belongs to Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, a naval commander in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and survived so long only by chance. A man reportedly found the braid and a 1911 handwritten letter from a professor claiming it to be a "genuine relic" in a recycling bin in the 1980s, says Simon Bower, an auctioneer at Morgan Evans & Co in Anglesey, per the BBC. He hasn't parted with it in the four decades since.

The admiral had reportedly asked that some of his hair be kept for his lover, Lady Emma Hamilton, before he was shot dead in the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar that served as his crowning achievement, preventing a British invasion by Napoleon, according to Just Collecting. It's "definitely a rarity," Bower says of the listing. "It will be interesting to see whether it goes to the museum or a private collection, but at the end of the day you just want it to be appreciated." The hair and letter are expected to fetch up to $660, but there's a chance the price could rise far beyond that. As the BBC reported, a brooch containing a lock of Lord Nelson's hair sold for about $10,000 in 2022, doubling the estimate.