Che’s hair, other items to be auctioned

MIAMI – As Cuba marks the 40th anniversary of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s death Tuesday, a Texas auction house has stepped up security for its planned sale of a lock said to be of the iconic rebel leader’s hair, snipped by a Miami exile before burying him.

Threatening e-mails have bombarded Heritage Auction Galleries, the Dallas-based auction house handling the Oct. 25 and 26 sale of Che-related memorabilia belonging to Gustavo Villoldo.

Villoldo, now 71, was hired by the CIA to capture Guevara, the poster boy of the Cuban Revolution, the Argentine whose famous face remains on billboards, hailed a revolutionary hero throughout the communist island. Che was cornered in the jungles of Bolivia on Oct. 8, 1967. He was executed a day later by Bolivian soldiers. Villoldo buried him in Vallegrande.

“We have received many threats,” said Kelley Norwine, spokeswoman for the auction house. “I guess some people think it’s disrespectful of us to be selling a lock of Che’s hair. Some people are not happy about it. But we are going on with the auction, as planned.”

Despite the threats, interest remains high in Villoldo’s Che collection, which he keeps in a scrapbook, Norwine said. Many regular customers of the auction house have said they’ll participate. On Monday, the opening bid was set at $50,000.

In Miami, Villoldo said he is not bothered by accusations he’s profiting from a dead man – one whose mystique has grown through the years in Europe and Latin America.

“I’m not too concerned about what those people say; or what Cuba says. I have no moral dilemma over selling these items,” said Villoldo, who partly blames Che for his father’s suicide in the wake of Fidel Castro’s climb to power.