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Want to Own a Locket of Leonard Cohen’s Hair? New Auction Gives You a Chance

An extensive collection of Leonard Cohen memorabilia, including a locket with his hair, will head to auction at the end of February.

In 1964, Leonard Cohen wrote a letter to a friend explaining that he’d sold what he called his manuscript “junk” to the University of Toronto, who shelled out $3,850 for the collection. That makes next month’s sale — “Leonard Cohen: The Collections of Aviva Layton, Anjani Thomas & More,” set for Feb. 28 by Julien’s Auctions — seemingly live up to its description as “the largest group of privately held collections of the legendary poet, singer and songwriter’s archival material and personal effects ever to come to auction.” Other items in the auction — culled from sources apart from Thomas and Layton — include a manuscript page of Cohen’s 1961 novel The Spice-Box of Earth with a “handwritten revision,” an unpublished poem thought to be the inspiration for “Bird on a Wire,” and a 1964 letter in which he groused about the Greek police.

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