AMN / WEB DESK

A pair of gold-plated spectacles believed to have been worn by Mahatma Gandhi and presented as a gift in the 1900s have broken all records for a United Kingdom auction house by selling for Rs 2,55,000,00 or GBP 2,60,000.

The glasses, which were dropped through the letterbox of East Bristol Auctions in Hanham, south-west England, four weeks ago were estimated to fetch between GBP 10,000 and GBP 15,000. But, the online bids for the lot kept multiplying to finally go under the hammer of the six-figure sum.

The unnamed new owner of the spectacles is an elderly man from Mangotsfield, South Gloucestershire in south-west England, who will split the GBP 2,60,000 with his daughter.

The glasses are said to have been in the family of the vendor in England, also an elderly gentleman. He was told by his father that they were a gift to his uncle when he was working for British Petroleum in South Africa between 1910 and 1930.