Mozart, Beethoven locks on the auction block

The barber of Seville is nowhere in sight, but locks of hair of Mozart and Beethoven are on the auction block. (Tweet This)

The items are being offered Thursday morning at Sotheby's in London.

The lock of Mozart's hair is being offered in a locket that explains the provenance of the strands.

"Hair of W.A. Mozart. Part of a lock given me by Karl Anschutz he having received it from his mother to whom it was given by the great composer's widow. Given by me to Arthur Somervell, Jas Collet," the handwritten note says.

Source: Sotheby's

Lock of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's fair hair, contained in a nineteenth-century gilt locket.

Anschutz (1813-1870) was a conductor, Somervell (1863-1937) was an English song writer whose wife, Edith, was the daughter of James Collet, a civil engineer, Sotheby's said.

The auction house said the item is expected to fetch 10,000 to 12,000 pounds (about $15,000 to $18,000).

The Beethoven lock comes with an invitation to the composer's funeral. Sotheby's said it is expected to fetch 2,000 to 3,000 pounds ($3,000 to $4,500).

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The invitation laments the passing of the "celebrated and irreplaceable composer, who died from the effects of dropsy at 6 o'clock in the evening of 26 March 1827."

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