The hair was pulled from a plughole at New York’s Carlyle Hotel sometime in the 1980s.

Bids for the hair – which comes with a certificate of authenticity – start at £500 but organisers of the online auction are hoping it reaches £3000.

There has been no mention of what a prospective buyer may do with the hair, or who retrieved it from the drain and what they’ve been doing with it since.

If it does sell, it will have been more popular than a previously unseen Michael Jackson documentary which failed to gain a buyer at a an auction in London on Saturday – perhaps due to a steep reserve.

The footage of the singer’s ‘Dangerous’ 1993 world tour, filmed in Argentina was expected to fetch £4 million but it seems that was too steep even for the most fanatical jackson worshippers.

It’s said that Jackson gave a VHS copy of the scrapped film to his chauffeur at the time  and was said to be so unhappy with the finished documentary that he fired the crew who worked on it.

Still, Jackson memorabilia proves popular since the singer’s death two years ago.

In June, both the jacket he wore in his 1983 Thriller video and his famous white glove and fedora hat were sold.

And last month a pair of silk pyjamas and a bed he slept in were sold in Ireland.