Winston Churchill’s dentures up for sale

Jul 20, 2010 |

Reuters

London

A partial set of British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s gold-mounted dentures, specially designed to disguise his natural lisp, go up for sale this month.
The partial dentures, which Keys Auctioneers have catalogued with an estimated value of £4,000 to £5,000, are being sold by the son of the technician who was commissioned to make them.
A duplicate is on show at the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a third set was buried with Churchill in 1965. According to documents written by the college of surgeons, the dentures were “carefully designed to ensure that Churchill retained his characteristically slurred diction — a deliberate affectation designed to overcome a childhood lisp.
“Churchill lived in fear of losing his false teeth, and hence his speaking voice, and insisted that spare dentures always be on hand,” it added.

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