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

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. How times have changed, especially in the rock memorabilia world. Next month, an auction of Cohen’s working drafts, correspondence and other items will include that letter, which auction organizers predict will go for at least double that amount, if not more.

Sales of pop star items, alive or dead, are increasingly commonplace. In 2019, Christie’s auctioned off a collection of 50 love letters from Cohen to his muse, Marianne Ihlen. But in general, Cohen items rarely pop up on the memorabilia circuit. 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.”

The auction is centered around items contributed by Thomas, Cohen’s one-time romantic and creative partner, and Layton, a longtime close friend who saw Cohen just a few weeks before his death.

The auction will include drafts of lyrics and poems, one of Cohen’s hats, jewelry he gave as gifts, and even a piece of his hair. “The [official Cohen] archives vacuumed up anything that came in the market rather quickly,” Thomas says. “So there isn’t a lot available, nor will there be. So this is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.”

Layton and her late ex-husband, Canadian poet Irving Layton, first met Cohen in the mid-1950s. One of Layton’s family members discovered Cohen’s black fisherman cap in a box in her former Montreal home. The hat dates back to Cohen’s years in Greece, and the times the Laytons would visit him there.

“Leonard was wearing his cap and Irving said, ‘I write poetry, but I’d like to write songs and make tons of money like you,'” Layton recalls. “And Leonard said, ‘I’ve got this cap, it’s a magic cap. I’ve written all my early songs wearing this cap. I’m going to give it to you and you’ll be able to write songs and make a lot of money too.’ Unfortunately it only seemed to work for Leonard.”

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Layton’s contributions also include a playfully obscene drawing that Cohen faxed to her, the photograph of Ihlen used on the back cover of Cohen’s Songs from a Room, and the key to an entrance of Cohen’s apartment on the Greek island of Hydra. (“The keys have long been replaced,” she says, to reassure its current occupants.)

Thomas — who sang backup on Cohen’s original version of “Hallelujah” and worked with him as a backup singer, keyboardist and co-songwriter — is offering up, among other items, a 76-page green Apica notebook from 2007 that she and Cohen shared. Inside are Cohen’s handwritten drafts for the songs “It’s Torn” and “Treaty,” as well as some “personal reflections.” The notebook also includes a ledger of jokey bets Thomas and Cohen would make, and how much they owed each other.

“We’d bet on things like whether or not Phil Spector would go to jail, and I said he would,” Thomas says. “We used to bet on everything. Obscene amounts of money. Luckily for him, I never collected on it.”

Thomas is also selling a poem Cohen gave to her for her 50th birthday. “I cried when he wrote that, and then he cried because I cried,” she says. “So it was a sweet emotional experience to read. It very accurately describes our relationship.”

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The auction also includes what’s described as a “gold-tone oval metal locket with faux green stones and pearls on a matching green stone and pearl chain. That locket also contains a piece of Cohen’s hair. “We were cutting his hair one day, and he had just given me a locket for my birthday,” Thomas recalls. “And I thought it was a traditional thing to put a snippet of hair in a locket. It’s a very olden-times-custom.”

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.

Given how little Cohen material has been auctioned off, the sale will be also a barometer of how much Cohen’s legend has grown since his death in 2016. Christie’s 2019 auction of the letters to Ihlen netted a total of $876,000. The notebook in Thomas’ possession is alone estimated to go for between $100,000 and $150,000.

“If I had known Leonard was going to turn into ‘Leonard Cohen,’ I would have had 10 times more the amount,” Layton jokes. “Luckily, I have the things I have. Leonard was a prolific gift-giver. But I’m 91 going on 91, and it was time to let it go.”