I've been a fan of Ray Bans since the early 70's when I first purchased a pair of shooting glasses for trap and skeet. My choice of shooting glasses has changed, but not my love of Ray Bans.
I always purchased the tear-drop models, but of late, I've become fond of the original Caravan model. I own several pairs and I really like the style. And up front, I also own American Optical and Randolph Engineering model aviators. One pair of Caravans I found on eBay, are going to need replacement lenses, but the original Ambermatics are no longer available.
Google has been next to useless in trying to find any Ray Ban blogs.
Whatever Ray-Ban's you buy these days have little to do with what you grew up on.
They are owned by Luxottica these days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica, which controls 80-90% of sunglasses around the world. They make all the sunglasses for fashion brands, and also own Persol, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, etc. If you think you will get expert advise by going to Sunglass Hut think again, Luxottica owns that too. They are 1,000's of % in premiums.
Randolph sunglasses used to be a great value, but they have doubled or tripled their prices in the last few years.
I've stopped buying Luxottica products, but I still have a couple of Ray-Bans that I enjoy and won't throw away. Most recently, I bought new sunglasses from Raen, a small California outfit.
patotts wrote:
Whatever Ray-Ban's you buy these days have little to do with what you grew up on.
They are owned by Luxottica these days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxottica, which controls 80-90% of sunglasses around the world. They make all the sunglasses for fashion brands, and also own Persol, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, etc. If you think you will get expert advise by going to Sunglass Hut think again, Luxottica owns that too. They are 1,000's of % in premiums.
Randolph sunglasses used to be a great value, but they have doubled or tripled their prices in the last few years.
I've stopped buying Luxottica products, but I still have a couple of Ray-Bans that I enjoy and won't throw away. Most recently, I bought new sunglasses from Raen, a small California outfit.
I have one pair of Ray Bans which are of Luxottica origin, and while they're of great quality (Italian-made), they just aren't the same as the two pair of Caravan's that date from the 70's, and into the 80's. I have about ten pair of original Ray Ban's in both aviator- and shooting-style frames, which have G-15 lenses, and the pair of Caravan's which have Ambermatic lenses. One of the specs I need is the lens size of the original Caravan.
I had occasion to contact Ray Ban customer service a number of years ago. The screw head on a temple piece became nearly stripped. They shipped me enough temple and frame screws to last a life time. I have noticed that the Luxoticca-made Ray Bans now have a Phillips-type nylok screw.
