Spoonbender Uri Gellar forks out £50,000 to buy John Lennon's sunglasses at auction

Celebrity spoonbender Uri Geller has forked out over £50,000 on a pair of John Lennon's round-tinted glasses, it has been revealed.

The blue-tinted sunglasses were originally picked up from the top of a piano in the Abbey Road studio in London by a fan named Michael during a visit in 1968.

His then girlfriend Penny became familiar with the Beatles whilst she was dating a drummer of the sixties band The Yardbirds. She then took Michael to the iconic studios for his 18th birthday where he was introduced to John Lennon.

The youngster spotted the singer's trademark glasses, as Lennon casually told him he could have them and wished him a happy birthday.

Now aged 75, Michael decided to sell the rolled gold wire framed glasses at auction where a frantic bidding war saw them skyrocket beyond their £3,000 to £40,000 in a frantic bidding war.

Lennon's trademark glasses were snapped up by famed mystic Uri Geller, 77, who paid an eye-watering £51,040 spectacles in total with auction house fees.  

Hailing from Israel, Mr Geller is a known collector of John Lennon memorabilia and has his own museum in the country - where he will display the glasses.

The spoonbender, who claims to have become friends with Lennon in New York in the late 1970s, was delighted at bagging the iconic glasses.

'I'm so, so happy. I am elated. I am mind-blown that I got them. As soon as I heard about the auction, I knew I had to have them,' he said.

'And now I do - for £40,000. I would have paid a lot more.' 

Geller said the glasses were important to him as he and the Beatles star had a 'special' relationship where they bonded over UFOs, aliens, and spirituality.

He said: 'It's important to me because I had a special relationship with John. We lived very close together in New York in the 1970s and he absolutely changed my life.

'We met because we both believed in aliens and UFOs and we bonded over those things.

'He once gave me an object that he believed he was given by an extra-terrestrial being.

'And he changed my life by helping me find spirituality.' 

Geller plans to add the glasses to his museum's John Lennon collection in Tel Aviv - where they will lie in bulletproof glass.

'I always say glasses are like a window to the soul, so they're special,' he added.

'The circular design is important because John always wore those - and the blue-tinted lens is important because colours represented certain things to John.'

Michael, who decided to auction Lennon's glasses, also visited the London studio in 1969 when the Beatles staged their now legendary photo shoot for their album Abbey Road.

He also snapped a few behind the scenes shots of Paul McCartney and Ringo Star on the road following post-photoshoot which he has put up for sale.

As well as McCartney and Starr who are wearing the same clothes they wore for the shoot, Michael took photos of The Beatles' producer George Martin and sixties pop star Donovan. 

In total there were 33 photos - seven of Abbey Road - with others depicting Ringo Starr's Mini, John Lennon's Rolls Royce and Paul and Linda McCartney's house in Cavendish Avenue in St John's Wood.

Auctioneers who sold the photos and the glasses have been able to match some of the parked cars in Michael's pictures with the Abbey Road cover. 

The items were sold by Catherine Southon Auctioneers of Chislehurst, Kent.

Ms Southon said: 'A man came to one of our valuation days saying he had John Lennon's glasses.

'He was aged in his mid-70s and he explained that on his 18th birthday in 1968 his girlfriend, who used to go out with the drummer of The Yardbirds, took him to Abbey Road as she knew quite a few people there. 

'They went into the studio and John Lennon and George Martin were there. He picked up these glasses on the piano and Penny told him not to touch them.

'At that moment John Lennon said 'that's OK, he can have them.'

Ms Southon added: 'I am absolutely thrilled with the result of the auction of the glasses and delighted that they will be part of such an iconic collection.

'Uri and John were friends so it's a great end to this wonderful story.'