Grim ‘Che’ mementos fetch six figures at auction

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A lock of hair, a set of fingerprints and a photograph taken of slain revolutionary Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s corpse fetched $100,000 at a controversial auction in Texas this week.

The memorabilia kept for 40 years by a Miami Cuban exile stirred as much controversy as interest among collectors, prompting Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas to hire extra security for the sale, which drew numerous inquiries but in the end only one bidder. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was among those who had expressed interest in the macabre mementos, but they were purchased by Houston book dealer Bill Butler, who maintains a display in tribute to the revolutionary icon at Butler & Sons Books.

The lock of hair and evidence of Guevara’s October 1967 execution by a CIA-backed mission had been collected by Bay of Pigs veteran Gustavo Villoldo, who was part of the team that captured the Argentine-born revolutionary in a Bolivian jungle and killed him two days later.

Guevara fought alongside Cuba’s Fidel Castro to oust a rightist regime from Havana in 1959. It was in his role as Cuban economic czar in the revolutionary government that Guevara ordered the confiscation of the Villoldo family’s auto business, driving the memento collector’s father to commit suicide and the surviving family to flee to Florida.

Posted by Carol J. Williams in Miami