A lock of Latin American revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's hair sold along with other items billed as related to his death for 100,000 dollars Thursday in an auction, according to dpa. The buyer of the single lot was Bill Butler, a bookstore owner and antique-book dealer from Rosenberg, Texas, who plans to display the objects in his shop. The items were auctioned by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions for seller Gustavo Villoldo, who claims to be a former CIA agent who supervised the burial of the Argentine-born revolutionary. He says he advised the Bolivian Army on the pursuit of Guevara and his men, leading to the revolutionary's arrest and execution on October 9, 1967. Villoldo told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that he saved the lock of hair - cut off after Guevara's death - as a symbol of having defeated "the revolution of the bearded men." He was surprised by how much the bidder was willing to pay for a memento from a "criminal." "I wouldn't have paid 10 cents for that," Villoldo said. Butler faced no competition for his telephone offer and just paid the initial asking price. He will pay a 19,500-dollar commission to Heritage Auctions. The auction lot that featured the hair also included photographs, maps of the mission to find and capture the revolutionary in Bolivia, the text of an intercepted message that helped lead the Bolivian Army to the rebels and prints taken from Guevara's fingers. "I just hope that the person who bought it keeps (the auction lot), and someday it will be useful for somebody to study it," Villoldo said. Despite Cuban claims that Guevara's remains had been discovered and reburied on the communist island, where the revolutionary is still officially revered, Villoldo insists that Guevara is still buried in Bolivia.
