Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

A pair of John Lennon‘s glasses have gone to auction and sold for no less than £137,500 ($183,000 US dollars).

The spectacles were offered up to auction by former Beatle chauffeur Alan Herring.

By Herring’s account, they were given to him by Lennon in 1968, who upon noticing the broken pair of glasses in the backseat of the car informed the driver he could keep them.

This was in spite of Herring’s insistence that he get them fixed.

And, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

More than half a century later Herring, citing financial reasons put the Lennon relic to the public for sale.

Expected to fetch somewhere between £6,000 to £8,000 the glasses well exceeded expectation.

According to Auctioneer Sotheby’s, the glasses were generic, non-prescription model provided to Lennon prior to his appearance in 1967 film How I Won The War.

This would mean the glasses were likely in John Lennon‘s possession when he wrote Beatles classic ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ while filming on location in Spain.

“They are such an integral part of John Lennon’s image right from the mid-60s to his death,” Alan said of the fractured spectacles in a statement delivered before the auction. “He goes through so many fashion changes but the one constant is the sunglasses – if you want to draw a caricature of John Lennon, it’s the long hair and the sunglasses.”

Herring worked for the Beatles during the latter half of the 1960s, specifically ferrying Ringo Starr and George Harrison about London on business and most likely to studio sessions for The White Album and Abbey Road.

“The memories I have of this very special time in my life working with the Beatles are far more important to me than the things I kept which are associated with them,” Herring said of his decision to sell the items.