Annette, who did not want her last name used, grew up in Denmark before moving to New Zealand about 60 years ago, has 119 of them and they are displayed across six shelves, and they become an immediate conversation piece for people who visit.
"Most people don't know what they are," she said.
"They think they're mis-shapen egg cups."
Her grandfather had been a pharmacist back in Denmark and in those days pharmacies were just that.
They sold medical and health requirements and nothing else, and among those requirements were eye-baths.
"I spent a lot of time in the pharmacy and got to see a lot of them, and I just liked the way they looked."
Back then it was all about different styles and coloured glass as well as clear.
So she acquired some, and later when helping clear her mother's house came across another unique one, so it too went into a collection which continued to grow through the years, and she came across several other people who also collected them as they reflected a long and colourful medical history.
Some she has date back to the 1880s and a time when there were more dirt roads than paved ones, and when dust would fill the air ... and the eyes.
It may sound an odd thing to collect but there are collectors all around the world, Annette said, and she has a couple of publications which focus on the style and development of the not-so-humble eye bath.
"I found a lovely old one in Dublin once."
She also heard a remarkable story from the chap who ran the second-hand shop.
When he heard Annette and her daughter were from New Zealand he told them how a darker-skinned gentleman had walked in one day and introduced himself as a distant relative.
It transpired his great-grandfather had been forced to leave Ireland and had gone to New Zealand, where he married a Maori lady and he was an ancestor who was related to the shop owner and who had been seeking distant family from the past.
"I think of that story every time I look at the eye bath we bought there."
Annette said her collection would remain at 119 as she was happy with what she had managed to track down through so many years.
"Besides, I'd have to put up another shelf," she said.