diff --git a/contrib/all-revsets.txt b/contrib/all-revsets.txt
--- a/contrib/all-revsets.txt
+++ b/contrib/all-revsets.txt
@@ -118,3 +118,9 @@ roots((0:tip)::)
 # those two `roots(...)` inputs are close to what phase movement use.
 roots((tip~100::) - (tip~100::tip))
 roots((0::) - (0::tip))
+
+# Testing the behavior of "head()" in various situations
+head()
+head() - public()
+draft() and head()
+head() and author("mpm")
diff --git a/mercurial/revset.py b/mercurial/revset.py
--- a/mercurial/revset.py
+++ b/mercurial/revset.py
@@ -1107,8 +1107,9 @@ def head(repo, subset, x):
     # i18n: "head" is a keyword
     getargs(x, 0, 0, _("head takes no arguments"))
     hs = set()
+    cl = repo.changelog
     for b, ls in repo.branchmap().iteritems():
-        hs.update(repo[h].rev() for h in ls)
+        hs.update(cl.rev(h) for h in ls)
     # XXX using a set to feed the baseset is wrong. Sets are not ordered.
     # This does not break because of other fullreposet misbehavior.
     # XXX We should not be using '.filter' here, but combines subset with '&'