Jonathan Humbert, left, with Churchill impersonator Derek Herbert wearing the pair of Sir Winston’s glasses kept at his Whitehall offices during his second spell as Prime Minister. Against an estimate of £50-80, the glasses sold for £7500.
Manufactured by opticians C.W. Dixey & Son of Wigmore Street, London, the cased spectacles were sold with a Dixey compliments slip inscribed to the verso: These tortoiseshell spectacles were made in 1954 for the Rt Hon Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG OM CH and signed J.R.A. Gibson, director.
The current managing director of C.W. Dixey was also in attendance to see them sell to a UK buyer at £9500 (plus 15 per cent buyer's premium).
Mr Humbert said he had been able to estimate the glasses at a lowball £200-300: he had experienced a similar response in July 2009 when selling a dilapidated red leather chesterfield, kept in Churchill's Whitehall offices during his second spell as Prime Minister, for £7500 against an estimate of £50-80.
