A pair of John Lennon’s glasses are heading to auction. Alongside some photographs from The Beatles’ Abbey Road photoshoot, the items are expected to fetch several thousand pounds.
The glasses themselves are relatively simple. The pair of shades headed for auction are simple round wireframes with blue-tinted lenses. They are recognisable as the kind that Lennon liked to wear during the late 1960s and onward as his fashion, along with his music and lifestyle, evolved further and further away from the group’s mod-like origins.
But this pair are special as they were gifted to the seller personally by Lennon. In 1968, a young man was visiting Abbey Road Studios when he had a chance encounter with the musician. A spokesperson from Catherine Southon Auctioneers & Valuers said that the glasses were handed to a man, who was with his girlfriend, by Lennon himself.
“The young man saw the spectacles lying on the piano and went to pick them up but was told by his then-girlfriend to leave them, to which Lennon replied, ‘It’s OK, he can have them’,” they said.
Now, the personal gift will be up for personal sale as the shades head to auction at Farleigh Golf Club in Surrey on the 31st July. They’ll be up for sale alongside a collection of photographs from the day of the Abbey Road album cover shoot, showing the band in the iconic pose on the crossing outside the studio.
The collection of 33 photographs is expected to sell for £200 to £300, while the glasses are expected to fetch a staggering £3000.
However, these sums are relatively low in the lofty history of The Beatles at the auction. In May, one of Lennon’s guitars sold for a record-breaking price. After being believed to be long lost, his Framus Hootenanny 12-string guitar, which was used on the Help! album, was expected to sell for between $600,000 and $800,000. In the end, it fetched a mind-blowing $2.9 million, which is around £2.6 million.
The guitar instantly became the most expensive Beatles guitar ever sold at auction. Other instruments and memorabilia from the band have fit staggering prices too, like a Ludwig drum kit used by Ringo Starr selling for another record price of $2.2 million, or the drumhead used on the band’s The Ed Sullivan Show performance which went for $2.1 million.
While these glasses aren’t expected to hit those lofty prices, the £3000 expected sum still proves the public’s hunger to own even the smallest bit of the band’s history.
