CINCINNATI (AP) – The first man to walk on the moon used to come into Marx’s Barber Shop in Lebanon about every month for a trim.

That stopped when Neil Armstrong learned that owner Marx Sizemore picked up some of the former astronaut’s hair from the floor of his shop and sold it for $3,000 to a Connecticut collector.

“I didn’t deny it or anything,” said Sizemore, who recently bought the shop. “I told him I did it.”

Armstrong commanded NASA’s Apollo 11 mission in 1969, becoming the first person on the moon. He left the space program in 1971 to teach aeronautical engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

He still lives in suburban Cincinnati but is an extremely private person who seldom appears at public functions and never grants interviews. He used to talk to his barber.

“He asked me to pursue trying to get the hair back,” Sizemore said. “I called the person I sold it to and told him. He was not interested in giving it back. I called Neil back and told him that. Then I got this letter from his lawyer.”

The letter threatens legal action if Sizemore does not return the hair or contribute his $3,000 profit to a charity of Armstrong’s choosing. The letter contends that the sale violates an Ohio law designed to protect the rights of famous people. It also asks Sizemore to pay Armstrong’s legal expenses.

“I’m basically stuck between a rock and a hard place,” said Sizemore, 36, who spent the $3,000 mostly on bills. “I told the lawyer I’m not going to pay him. The ball’s in his court. If he doesn’t act on it, I’m not going to act on it. If it dies out, I’ll be happy.”

The lawyer, Ross Wales of Cincinnati, did not return a call seeking comment.

Sizemore scooped up Armstrong’s hair from his shop about 25 miles northeast of Cincinnati and sold it in May 2004, he said. Nearly a year passed before he got the letter, and only after Armstrong learned of the sale and confronted him.

Sizemore said he sold the hair to an agent for John Reznikoff, a Westport, Conn., collector listed by Guinness World Records as having the largest collection of hair from historical celebrities. The collection, insured for $1 million, includes hair from Abraham Lincoln, Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Napoleon and others.

Sizemore said he didn’t initiate the sale – the agent contacted him twice.

“At first, I told him no, I wasn’t interested,” Sizemore said. “He called me back; then he contacted me by mail.”

Sizemore said the agent offered $3,000 for the hair.

“That’s what he hit me with,” Sizemore said.

This time, the offer was irresistible.

The price is hardly a record. Guinness gives that honor to clippings from the head of Elvis Presley, sold by Presley’s personal barber, Homer “Gill” Gilleland, for $115,120 in an online auction in 2002.