A pair of sunglasses that once belonged to The Beatles’ John Lennon has sold at auction for close to C$242,000 (or £137,500).
The gold wire-framed round sunglasses with green-tinted lenses were listed on Sotheby’s website as the property of Alan Herring, a former chauffeur.
“The most iconic sunglasses in rock and roll history,” claimed the site.
A letter of provenance by Herring accompanied the listing, which ended online bidding on Friday. Herring worked with The Beatles’ George Harrison and Ringo Starr from 1967 to 1969, with his role evolving from landscape contractor to chauffeur and handyman. Lennon gave him the Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses in 1968.
“In the summer of 1968 I had picked John up with Ringo and George in Ringo’s Mercedes and driven the boys into the office,” Herring’s letter said.
Herring noticed that Lennon left the sunglasses in the back seat of the car, with one lens and one arm “disconnected.”
“I asked John if he’d like me to get them fixed for him,” Herring wrote. “He told me not to worry, they were just for the look!”
Herring’s letter says he never got the glasses repaired.
“I just kept them as they were as John had left them,” he said.
According to the listing, Lennon got the round glasses — which he became known for wearing — in preparation for a role in a film called How I Won the War.
Some of his glasses have sold before, in 1996, 2007 and 2014. A lock of his hair — cut as Lennon prepared for the same film — sold for US$35,000 in 2016.
It is unclear who bought the latest pair of glasses, according to BBC News.
Lennon died on Dec. 8, 1980, when he was gunned down by a crazed fan outside his New York apartment. Ten years later, the assassin, Mark Chapman, said that by killing the former Beatle he had murdered an age of innocence.
— With files by Reuters