A passionate eye

Some people have strange passions. How many people do you know, for example, who collect replacement human eyes made of glass?

"Set of human glass eyes auctioned in Lichfield" reports that a vintage collection of prosthetic glass eyes in a range of colours, sizes and  vein patterns has sold at auction for several times more than the expected price, which auctioneer Charles Hanson says reflects the "great interest from collectors worldwide for such quirky collectables from" the 1920s to 1930s (2014, para. 8).

Although collecting glass ones worn to replace a lost eye does not impassion me, I kind of like the idea that someone is apparently happy to have obtained such a collection for what he or she presumably thinks is a good price, and the price, £940 (about 51,000 Baht), does seem reasonable to me. I've spend that much on a single pen that I was passionate about, and although my friends, and my mother, said some rather rude things about it, I've never regretted that or other amounts I've spend indulging my passions, some of which I'm sure some people think are very odd. But I still think that the fake eye ball collection is seriously odd, and a little bit creepy.

Cool or creepy? 

However, the photograph with the article in the BBC News is interesting. As the article says, it shows that the eyes, all single eyes, vary in colour, size and shape. I guess they were modelled after an intact eye that they were supposed to match. What interested me is that they are not actually spheres, which was what I had expected. They don't even look like squashed or stretched spheres, but more like eggs that have had a chunk scooped out from one side.

I am sure that they all served very useful purposes for their original owners before ending up in some stranger's strange collection. They reminded me of a a guy I knew at uni. who wore a prosthetic eye. I was very glad he did not pop it out for me to examine.

A group of my colleagues at AUA are passionate about science fiction films to a degree that I can't understand. I thought Avatar was great fun, and well-worth watching at least a couple of times, but I haven't felt any need to collect the very expensive figures and special edition Blu-rays and so on. Even less would I pay good money for Star Wars figures, books on the films, and such like, but my friends spend hours talking about these sorts of acquisitions with great pleasure. And I do like that. I might not be able to share their passion, or even understand why intelligent, educated adults would be so obsessed by such things, but I think it's great that they have this passion that clearly brings them much pleasure. And they probably think my mild obsession with ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and culture, not to mention some of my other passions, are also weird and incomprehensible. Would you pay US$400 (13,000 Baht) for a dictionary? (It's a very good dictionary, and much cheaper than one of my English ones.) Or would you save your money and buy a dozen vintage glass eyes instead?

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Reference

Set of human glass eyes auctioned in Lichfield. (2014, April 24). BBC News Stoke and Staffordshire. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-27142736