India Mahatma Gandhi's Spinning Wheel Sold For £110,000

spnadmin · Nov 7, 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24815476

Mullock's auctioneers said the price paid for the spinning wheel had "exceeded expectations"

A spinning wheel used by Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi while in prison has been sold at auction for about £110,000 ($180,000).

He used it to spin thread and make his own clothes in Pune's Yerwada jail in the early 1930s.

Gandhi gave the wheel to the American Free Methodist missionary Reverend Dr Floyd A Puffer in 1935.

Auctioneers Mullock's said it had been sold to an anonymous phone bidder at Ludlow Racecourse in Shropshire.

Richard Westwood-Brookes from the auction house said the price had "exceeded expectations."

"The guide price for the wheel (between £60,000 ($96,000) and £80,000) was based on what the owner thought they could get, which I initially thought might be a bit high," he said.

"Once the interest started to come in online and on the phones it took its own momentum."

The portable spinning wheel, called a charkha in Hindi, "folds into a bundle about the size of a portable typewriter and has a handle for carrying. When unfolded for use it is operated by turning a small crank which runs the two wheels and spindle of the device", the American monthly Popular Science wrote in 1931.

Gandhi spent time daily on spinning and often described it as a form of meditation.

His artefacts are regularly sold at auctions and are popular with collectors.

In February this year Mullock's set a record with a letter of Gandhi fetching £115,000. In May a collection including his sandals, shawl and other personal effects topped £250,000.

Last year a pair of Gandhi's glasses with a guide price of £10,000 sold for £34,000 at the racecourse.
:winkingkudi:

Kanwaljit.Singh · Nov 10, 2013

There is a story I read about spinning.. a quote attributed to Gandhi:

 One argument advanced in favor of rejection was, that the Sikh men considered it an undignified occupation to spin and looked down upon hand-weaving.
I do hope that the sentiment is not representative
of the brave community. Any
community that despises occupations that
bring an honest livelihood is a community
going down an incline. If spinning has been
the specialty of women, it is because they
have more leisure and not because it is an
inferior occupation. The underlying suggestion
that a wielder of the sword will not
wield the wheel is to take a distorted view
of a soldier's calling. A man who lives by
the sword does not serve 'his community
even as the soldiers in the employ of the
Government do not serve the country. The
wielding of the sword is an unnatural
occupation resorted to among civilized
people only on extraordinary occasions
and only for self-defence. To live by hand spinning
and hand-weaving is any day
more manly than to live by killing. Aurangzeb was not the less a soldier for sewing
caps. What we prize in the Sikhs is not their ability to kill. The late Sardar Lachman
Singh will go down to posterity as a
hero, because he knew how to die. The
Mahant of Nankhana Saheb will go down
to posterity as a murderer. I hope therefore
that no man will decline to learn the
beautiful life-giving art of hand-spinning
on the ground of its supposed inferiority.
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India Mahatma Gandhi's Spinning Wheel Sold For £110,000

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