Saturday, July 14, 2007

All you need is a fortune for Lennon's glasses

A pair of John Lennon's trademark "granny" glasses for sale in an online auction could make up to £1million.

The gold-rimmed spectacles were given by the former Beatle to his Japanese translator Junishi Yore in 1966 during the band's tour of Japan.

Their dark lenses are missing as Mr Yore removed them when Lennon was murdered in 1980. In a traditional mark of respect, he pushed them out with his thumbs so that, in death, Lennon could see.



A hand written note validates the provenance of these spectacles: 'sunglass no lense, given to my self Producer Nippon T.V. Network, at time translator for Beatles At Tokyo Hilton John Lennon wore same glasses at Budokan for shows had silver glass too he gave me this I gave copper cups to him very nice man lenses removed whe he die (black) as I/we feel he see us after death in Japan Regards Junishi Yore Producer NTV Tokyo Japan Nippon Television 1984'.

The last pair of Lennon glasses to change hands in 2002 are kept at The Beatles Story exhibition in Liverpool and are insured for £1 million.

The auction on the website www.991.com is open until the end of the month.

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