Te Puke man secures future for late father’s prosthetic eye collection

Although it will be split up, Bruce Brown has found homes for the prosthetic eye collection he inherited from his father. Photo / Stuart Whitaker

It looks like Te Puke resident Bruce Brown’s eye collection is going to find a new home.

Brown spoke to NZME last month about his desire to move on the collection of around 2500 artificial eyes that had been made by his father.

He had advertised their availability with little response and was scratching his head about where they might go.

“It really seems such a shame for them just to effectively be put into storage or biffed,” he said.

James Brown, his father, was a prosthetic eye maker who travelled around the North Island offering his services.

He had been trained and began his work at Burnham Military Camp during World War II before continuing at Christchurch’s Burwood Hospital.

Since the article’s publication, Brown has had more inquiries and requests than he could meet.

When NZME caught up with him again, he was packaging up some cases to be sent to Dunedin - just one of many shipments to the eyes’ new homes.

Bruce Brown was looking for a home for over 2500 artificial eyes. Photo / Stuart Whitaker

While the collection has had to be split up, Brown said he’s happy it’s going to places where it will be valued.

“It’s going to a variety of organisations and people for a variety of uses.”

He has had people visit and collect some of the prosthetic eyes, and thinks by the end of this week, they will all have gone.

Some will be put on display, including at the medical history museum at Auckland Hospital and a museum in Christchurch, as well as in optometrists’ shops.

Among the collection were “blank” eyes, many of which have gone to The Incubator Creative Hub in Tauranga’s Historic Village.

“The ones they got were some of the unfinished ones, which are smooth and will be great for people to paint in oil paint.

“We had some schools asking for them as well, but they use water-based and poster paints, and they won’t stick to them.”

The finished prosthetic eyes were all hand-painted by Brown’s father.

“Several people were just so taken with the skill and the artwork and the way they’re made – it was a very skilful thing,” Brown said.

His father almost always made two of each prosthetic eye – even when his customer only wanted one, and, having seen the article, one past customer contacted Brown to see if he could get hold of his second eye.

“He contacted me from Whanganui and said, ‘your dad made an eye for me’. It must have been over 30 years ago.”

The customer had visited Brown’s father in Tauranga to have the eye made.

“He said ‘I know he always made two of them and I quite often misplace mine, will you be able to find my one that he may have made?’”

While people’s names were written on the backs of the extra eyes, Brown was unable to find it among the collection.

“I did send him a couple of similar types of eyes, which won’t be suitable, because they need to be the right shape and everything, but just really so he’s got something just in case. But that was quite interesting.”

Brown put together some information about his father to send with the various packages.

He said he was pleased the story had such a good reach that enabled parts of the collection to go to the South Island, where his father started his work.