$8000 rare glasses bought for love
It was love which drove a man to spend more than $8000 on a pair of rare, historic glasses.
Aaron Smylie lost his partner Helen Hammond to cancer on May 28. It followed a difficult period, where the couple had been unable to be in lockdown together during alert level 4.
‘‘We had to talk over FaceTime.’’ The pair would use filters on the Facetime app, and one time Hammond used a filter which added glasses and whiskers, which he took a screenshot of.
When Smylie spotted the glasses on TradeMe, they reminded him of the picture. ‘‘I like quirky stuff anyway, and that appealed to me, but it was more the emotional side. I guess I just got carried away with the auction.’’
Smylie planned to keep them on a display table. The glasses were found at Wellington’s Southern Landfill and subsequently posted on TradeMe by the Tip Shop, with a $300 reserve. The unusual pair of glasses, known as Martin’s Margins, went for $8150 after a frantic bidding war on Sunday night.
Smylie said the person who threw them out must be ‘‘kicking themselves’’. As for what Hammond would think? ‘‘I know she is looking over my shoulder thinking, ‘what the hell are you doing?’’’
The style of glasses was designed by optician Benjamin Martin in 1756. According to the listing, the Tip Shop staff, based at Wellington’s Southern Landfill, were unsure whether the glasses were made by Martin, as there were no maker’s marks. The glasses were one of the rarest items to pass through the Tip Shop, it said.