Mahatama Gandhi's iconic spectacles sold at auction for over Rs 2.5 crore in UK

A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles believed to be once worn by Mahatma Gandhi were sold in an auction for £260,000 (over Rs 2.5 crore) in the UK on Friday, four weeks after they were first discovered sticking out of a letter box outside the auction house, BBC reported.

The iconic spectacles were sold to an American collector within six minutes of bidding at an auction in Bristol Friday. The staff at East Bristol Auctions have said that the glasses had been dropped in their letter box by a man who claimed that they were originally gifted to his uncle by Gandhi himself, according to an AFP report.

“A colleague of mine



picked them up, ripped open the envelope and found a brief note inside saying, ‘These glasses belonged to Gandhi, give me a call,” Andrew Stowe, one of the auctioneers, told Sky News. “I read the note, carried on with the morning duties, and then around lunchtime I thought, ‘Well let’s give this gentleman a call, let’s see what the story is.”

The spectacles were passed on from generation to generation within the seller’s family, after his uncle received them as a gift while visiting South Africa in the 1920s, BBC reported. Gandhi was known for giving away his personal items to people in need or to those who helped him in some way.