A pair of Mahatma Gandhi's glasses is to go on sale after spending a weekend sticking halfway out of an auction house's letterbox, BBC News reported. 

Staff at East Bristol Auctions found the glasses in a plain envelope.

Auctioneer Andrew Stowe said the eyewear, expected to fetch more than £15,000, was the most important find in the company's history.

He said the owner "nearly had a heart attack" when he was told their value.

Stowe said the owner told him the glasses had been handed down from generation to generation in the owner's family, after a relative met Gandhi on a visit to South Africa in the 1920s. "We looked into the dates and it all matches up, even the date Gandhi started wearing glasses," he said. "They are probably one of the first pairs of glasses he wore as they are quite a weak prescription.”

Stowe said there had been a lot of interest in the glasses, especially from India.