KEY POINTS:
The country's most valuable plaster cast changed hands - or arms - in the Beehive today, much to the relief of the man who has been wearing it for the past few weeks.
Prime Minister John Key handed his cast to Wellington businessman Ganesh Cherian, who paid $18,500 for it in a Trade Me website auction, and thanked him for his generosity.
Mr Cherian said he would pass it on to the Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF) so the charity could try and capitalise on the cast's infamy.
The foundation also gets the $18,500, and executive director Carmel Williams said today it would pay for outreach visits from eye doctors and nurses from Fiji to go to the Solomon Islands to undertake cataract operations there.
She said as many as 400 people may be able to have cataracts removed as a result of the donation.
Mr Key broke his arm when he fell while exiting from a stage at a Chinese New Year celebration in Auckland last month, and it was covered in some high-profile signatures by the time it was removed.
He said he was "truly surprised" at the amount it sold for.
"But it does look like value for money to me and I can't tell you how delighted I am to be giving it to you and that it's off my arm."
Mr Key said the whole experience had worked out well, but he wasn't rushing to break his other arm.
He said - besides the signature of the Key family cat Moonbeam - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's was probably the cast's most prized as far as he was concerned.
"In the sense that it was really spontaneous. It was a sort of typical Anzac mateship, he walked up and said `give me a pen I need to sign your cast'. I didn't even ask him to sign it, he just assumed I would want him to."
That signing took place in the Solomon Islands while the PMs were visiting there, and officers working with the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands talked him into auctioning it for the charity, which undertakes projects in the Pacific.
Mr Key said the cast had been an interesting part of his life, but he was looking forward to life without it.
- NZPA
