A pair of India’s freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi’s glasses fetched a tidy sum at UK auction. In Bristol, a pair of gold rimmed circular spectacles were left in an auction house letter box by a man whose uncle was gifted the spects earlier by Gandhi during 1920’s. These rare glasses were sold finally to a collector for 2,60,000 euros.
Auctioneer Andrew Stowe said they belong to one of the most important figures in modern history. “So you know they’re going to be worth something. But after we did an extensive research and some digging, we realised these are an important historical find. We discovered that they were worth in the range of 10 and 20 thousand pounds. I nearly fell off my chair”.
Reportedly, they have been for 100 years in Gandhi’s family. But nobody ever thought they were worth anything. When auctioneer Andrew spoke to the vendor, his exact words were to him were, ‘if they were no good just throw them away’.
Within 24 hours of enlisting Mahatma Gandhi’s historic glasses online, bids of whopping 15000 euros started coming in. Although it atracted much interest from various countried inccluding India, they were eventually sold to an American collector and exceeded their vendor’s expectations.
Vendor says that the man’s uncle worked at British petroleum in south Africa. Presumably he would have been gifted by Gandhi for his good deed.