| GEO Amazing and Interesting | | Napoleon's hairs sold in NZ auction | Updated at: 0957 PST, Wednesday, June 30, 2010
 WELLINGTON: Rare memorabilia of former French Emperor Napoleon 1st, including a lock of hair cut from his head after he died in exile in 1821 on the remote island of St. Helena, have fetched 140,000 New Zealand dollars ($97,000) at auction.
Bidders from England, France, Lithuania, Hong Kong and the United States joined the auction by phone for the 40 items — sold by a New Zealand family, descendants of Denzil Ibbetson, commissionary officer on St. Helena during Napoleon's incarceration on the remote island.
The highest price, NZ$21,000 ($14,500) was paid for a lithograph and watercolor death bed sketch of Napoleon by Ibbetson, Art+Object auction house managing director Hamish Coney, said Wednesday. The unnamed buyer bid by phone from London.
A lock of hair Ibbetson cut from the former emperor's head fetched NZ$19,000 ($13,100) from a private collector in London who did not want to be identified, he said.
Ahead of the sale, Coney said he expected the hair to sell for up to NZ$300,000 ($207,000).
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