Those stupid giant 1970s eyeglasses and what I did about it - American Optical Liner glasses
Вставка
- Опубліковано 4 лис 2021
- In the 1970s, Ben Franklin would have looked like this.
Here's a classic pair of glasses in a frame that's called the "Liner." These frames were made by American Optical from the 1940s on into the 1970s. Wire frames, or metal frames as they can also be called, were pretty much the standard since the beginning of using lenses to correct for vision problems, going back to at least the 13th century. Ben Franklin, who invented the bi-focal in the 18th century, wore metal frames. This was literally the standard for hundreds of years, up until the advent of plastic frames. Plastic frames began to overtake metal in popularity in the 1940s and '50s and by 1960, even grandpa had given up his metal frames and was wearing plastic. THAT is why it was so counterculturally hip when John Sebastian, Roger McGuinn, and John Lennon started sporting wire frames in the later 1960s.
Personally, I really wanted to be equally hip in 1967, though I was only 14. I found an old pair of some old person's glasses in a yard sale and bought them. Though I had worn plastic-framed glasses since the second grade, I couldn't wear the wire framed ones I found because of course they did not have my particular prescription in them. I appealed to my mother, arbiter of all that was proper in our household, to let me get my prescription put into the wire frames. Absolutely not, was the response, along with something like "I don't want you going around looking like some hippie." But I was able to negotiate a deal with my parents at the time of my next eye exam. I would get new "proper" plastic glasses, as normal, but--if I spent my own money--I could have the wire frames made up with the new prescription as a spare pair of glasses. And I did. It cost me $15. Now that sounds cheap, but realize that that $15 is about $120 in today's money and I was only 14, scraping together money mowing lawns for people and other sorts of odd jobs. But I worked hard because I wanted those glasses and I did look good in them, if I say so myself.
For my high school graduation picture my mother insisted that I wear my stupid plastic glasses, though by that time I never wore them to school and almost never anywhere else. But after putting up a half-hearted fight I knew I'd lose, I did as she asked. But then I also scheduled another photo session with another photographer I paid for myself... where I had this taken, with my beloved wire frame glasses. I was a wiful child.
By the mid-1970s, this happened. The fashion in eyeglasses was for huge gaudy monstronsities. All of the glasses styles with small lenses were swept from the marketplace. And that was a problem for me because by this time, my poor old wire glasses were pretty well worn out. After all, they were used when I got them and I wore them pretty much every day for nine years or so. Here I am in 1977, still wearing them. You can see how thick they were... my eyesight was pretty poor and I needed pretty thick glasses. So when I went for an eye exam that year, I sought a replacement for my wire frames. All the eye doctor had on display were rows and rows of giant, ridiculous frames. Now, I would have chosen one of those if I had too. After all, that was the fashion, and as we've already seen, I was a follower of fashion with not a little vanity to boot. But... as I said, I needed pretty thick lenses... and the laws of optics being what they are, if I were to get an eyeglass frame with large lenses, as was the fashion, they would be like an inch thick on the edges. Coke-bottle lenses even worse than what I had. So no, I couldn't have that. I would have to choose a frame with a small lens size. And did the eye doctor have anything like that? "Welllll," he says, after rooting around in the back of his office somewhere, "they still make these." And what he showed me--and what I bought--and what I have worn ever since--was a pair of American Optical "Liners"--what he said at the time was the last wire frame made.
Here's me in my first pair of American Optical Liners in 1978. Goofing around, pretending to be serious for the camera. And here I am these days.
It's a good thing they are so well made. And I guess there's a good reason for their exceptional quality. After all, they didn't appear until the 1940s, which was very late in the game for wire frames. So they were made with the benefit of many decades of experience. When these were designed, plastic glasses were already coming into vogue. American Optical knew that if the all-metal Liner was to succeed, it had to be as good as they knew how to make it. It was never a glamorous frame, and it wasn't cheap either, but it has stood the test of time--and I don't think it's an overstatement to say that today it stands with certain other icons of twentieth-century design--such as Levi's jeans and Converse All Stars shoes--highly regarded as superior in quality and, if not beautiful, at least timeless in design. - Розваги
I just ordered 4 pairs of 1970s glasses, bout to bring them back
The 1970's, everybody looked like like a giant fly.
American optical started making the liner again
"Cool" video, I can so relate as I was in my teens in the late 60's. Wire frames were, and still are my preference.
Love the video. Question to other viewers - Is it just me or does the narrator sound a lot like the narrator (Jean Shepherd) from "A Christmas Story"? I know it not him, he's dead, but collectornet sounds a lot like him. Just wondered if anyone else thought so.
ray ban clubmaster is what iv worn for most my adult life. I ride motorcycles so needed a durable frame
I wish this had been the 1st video I'd ever seen of yours. The image of your actual face is having a real struggle to overcome what my imagination supplied while I learned about underpainted dials on transistor radios.
Your post brings up several questions: Had this been the first video you saw, would you have watched any others? What did you imagine?... and how did the images of me differ from expectations? Oh, and thanks for watching! I think some folks only watch videos on a single subject (like radios). Thanks for taking a chance!
@@collectornet Good questions! I was definitely attracted to your channel because of the vintage electronics. I fondly remember getting the old portable transistor radio in cream and magenta(?) with leather case out of my grandma's sunroom cabinet and removing the chrome-plated screw to remove the back and examine the circuitry.
I honestly might not have clicked on the wire-rim glasses video without first having gotten warmed up to you; so much for my original observation. But had I watched it first, your delivery would've pulled me in.
In my imagination you were clean shaven with bushier eyebrows, more serious looking. Thnx for all the cool content!
@@Schnydes Thanks!
hi Collectornet, I'm afraid the big round lens are back..I'm sorry.
Hey you look like Geraldo Rivera !
Gotta' have red lenses.... 🙄
I hated plastic eyeglass frames, wireframes are the only way to go, fashion be damned.
Darn awful!
My punishment as a kid was to see my dad's face!