John Lennon's historic, trademark 'granny' glasses which he wore during the last Beatles concert tour ever, go on sale today on music memorabilia website www.991.com. The gold-rimmed spectacles, which he gave to his Japanese interpreter in Tokyo in 1966, are expected to raise up to $2 million in worldwide bidding when the auction closes at the end of July. The Beatles were at the height of their fame - and the beginning of a new-found notoriety, following John's infamous "bigger than Jesus" comment.


What Lennon had actually said in his interview with Maureen Cleave, published on March 4, 1966, was that Christianity was on the wane and would one day "vanish and shrink." He added: "I needn't argue about that. I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first - rock'n'roll or Christianity."


John Warner, sales director of www.911.com , said the glasses had come into the British site's ownership from an American collector as part of a larger collection. "They are a massively iconic item from one of the greatest luminaries of pop," he said. "1966 was a rollercoaster year that saw Lennon creating his own identity, of which the round glasses were very much a part. Junishi Yore, Producer NTV Tokyo Japan Nippon Television, 1984, who served as the Beatles translator in Japan for their tour, confirms their provenance, and describes how, as a mark of religious respect, he removed the lenses with his thumb on the day the Beatle was shot dead outside his New York apartment on December 8, 1980.