John Lennon’s “Lost Weekend” Glasses Head to Auction, Estimated to Fetch $400,000

“John Lennon, 1974 (cropped)” by Tony Barnard, Los Angeles Times is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

John Lennon’s “Lost Weekend” glasses are on the block. The tinted prescription frames, worn by the musician from 1973 to early 1974, during the 18 months he separated from Yoko Ono and began a relationship with his personal assistant, May Pang, are part of a new lot of historic items listed on Propstore’s Music Memorabilia Live Auction. The starting bid is set at just over $100,000 and is estimated to sell for between $200,000 and $400,000. 

Lennon wore the rounded wire rims on the cover of his 1973 single “Mind Games,” as well as on the images taken by Tom Zimberoff on November 15, 1973, for an issue of the US rock magazine, Crawdaddy. He was also photographed wearing the lens at his Bel-Air home by Pang, as featured in her memoir, Loving John: The Untold Story. 

Its provenance dates back to June 1987, when the glasses were initially sold as part of Sotheby’s Collector’s Carousel auction. They reappeared in July 2008, during Christie’s Popular Culture: Rock & Pop Memorabilia Auction. Physically, the spectacles are tinted, thick prescription lenses, set in a metal frame with the branding “American Optical.”

According to the auction page, the glasses were worn by Lennon on March 12, 1974, when he and fellow musician Harry Nilsson heckled comedy team, the Smothers Brothers, while heavily intoxicated, an incident that led to a physical altercation, as well as Lennon and Nilsson’s removal from the venue. 

Sotheby’s original listing reports that the evening above was the last time Lennon was seen wearing the glasses, as images of the musician after the brawl presents him without his frames. According to Tommy Smothers’ retelling in Ticket to Ride, “The heckling got so bad that our show was going downhill rapidly. No one cared because it was just happening anyway, but there was a scuffle going on and we stopped the show. My wife ended up with Lennon’s glasses because of the punches that were thrown.” 

Bidding is open now through Thursday, October 23, at 7 a.m. P.T.