Thread: American Optical sunglasses

I have always liked Ray Ban Aviator sunglasses ever since I bought a pair in Rosie Roads PR in the early 1970s. Unfortunately being young and foolish I managed to loose them in short order. Fast forward 45 years and I am thinking I might be able to hang on to a pair of good sunglasses especially as the boss said she would nail them to my head if I bought a pair of good ones. It did not take long to find out I really did not want to pay what they are currently asking for Ray Ban Aviators up here. So it was research time.

I finally settled on a pair of American Optical Original Pilots sunglasses with their Grey glass True Colour lenses. I got them in today and am very happy with the quality of the frames and optical glass lenses. The glass grey TC lenses are easy on the eyes and remove glare as well as not changing the colour balance of what I am looking at.

The AO glasses are available in different frame sizes which is great if you have a fat head like mine, you can find a large enough frame. There is a wide choice of lens colours, frame styles and temples also.

Anyone looking at getting a good pair of sunglasses should at least check out the AO ones. Although I got mine off the net, here is a link to AO's site to give you an idea of what can be had.

Shop | AO Eyewear, Inc.

Bob

I have a pair of AO sunglasses as well. Dark grey lenses with the satin silver frames. My FIL found them dumpster diving one day at his storage unit. They were pretty badly bent up, but they have very bendable frames to customize the fit, so I just bent for my preference and they reside in the wife's mini van for when I drive it. Apparently they are pretty popular with the younger crowd these days. My daughter will put them on, do some duck lips and take her self portrait ("selfie").

I used to wear Ray Ban aviators all the time. I've also dabbled with AO back in the '70s and they are right up there with Bausch & Lomb. In the mid '90s I began wearing bifocals, was not doing ironwork outdoors, so gave sunglasses up until they came out with the lenses that change color when you go in the sun. That is what I stick with now. Here is an old ID card from a construction site I worked on in '78, sporting my Ray Bans ...........

The best sunglasses I ever had was Randolph Engineering which has the contract with the military and supplies all the sunglasses to military personnel. You can order milspec directly from them. They aren't cheap but they are super quality.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I used to wear Ray Ban aviators all the time. I've also dabbled with AO back in the '70s and they are right up there with Bausch & Lomb. In the mid '90s I began wearing bifocals, was not doing ironwork outdoors, so gave sunglasses up until they came out with the lenses that change color when you go in the sun. That is what I stick with now. Here is an old ID card from a construction site I worked on in '78, sporting my Ray Bans ...........

i've been wearing BL RB Outdoorsman since mid '60s to today. RB Outdoorsman has sweat bar, RB Aviators have no sweat bar and RB Shooters have a circle over nose piece and were originally designed to sit high on nose for when you tilt your head to shoot long guns so your eyes would be mid lens instead of looking through the top edge of lens.

I've got three pair Outdoorsman left with BL RB Ambermatic lens, one with upper & lower mirror gradients and one with bifocals. I have pile of parts from over the years of replacements and repairs. Anybody remember Hidalgo's out of Texas? The were a huge mail order house for BL till the '80s I think.

This pair of Ambermatics have bifocals.





Had a pair of AO Pilot in Viet Nam but they didn't make it out. RBs had cable temples where as AO Pilot had straight temples that kept falling off me. Har



..

Funny, I just checked in today about getting some black wire aviators, gradient grey with progressive reading bifocals.

I thought these were AO but they are B&L. They are always in the shop but usually use what I am wearing at the time.



Just a few of my favorites.



The box is full of different aviators.
Regular aviators and outdoorsman in G15 and ambermatic.
Cats (mostly black frame with different lenses) mirror, gradient grey, and dark grey.
Tortise Vagabonds in ambermatic

I panicked when they quit making the ambermatic lenses and stocked up. They are now having limited runs of them now and again. The last was a month ago. They sold 100 pairs first come first served and they ran out in about 3 days. I did get some :<0)

Knew I had seen you before.

Then

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

and now...



Did you ever go by the name of James 'Whitey' Bulger?

Originally Posted by Suticat

Knew I had seen you before.

Then


and now...



Did you ever go by the name of James 'Whitey' Bulger?

I refuse to answer on the grounds I might incriminate myself .........