Think Out Loud

 

So it all started in May, when me and my mum went on our favourite Second Hand store, the Red Cross Fleemarket in Turku. A few days prior to going home, I'd broke my sunglasses, a pair of cheap aviator style glasses that I'd gotten from my friend about half a decade ago. For some reason, my eyes are very sensitive to sunlight and so walking in to the store seeing a box, filled with sunglasses, with a big sign saying "Sunglasses 2,50€", made me do a little happy dance before I started to rumage trough the little box for a new pair to shield my eyes with. My goal was to find a pair that I would look diesent in, that's all. Especially since they where only 2,50€, they could serve as my "help-me-home" glasses until I could afford something else. 

 

After about half a minute of digging trough sunglasses something golden on one of the lenses caught my eye. "Thoes are Ray Ban's..!?", I told my mum. I picked them up and couldn't believe my eyes. "These can't be genuine...", was all I could think. Apart from the logo on the lense, the glasses had a golden RayBan-logo on each side of the frames and on the inside it said BALI II Bausch & Lomb on one side, and RayBan Celebrities on the other. 

 

At that point I knew nothing of the history around the brand so based upon where I'd found them, I desided they just had to be really good fakes that where made in Bali or something. Long story short, I tried them on, thought I looked okay, and aber browsing the rest of the shop I went to the register, told them where I'd found them and paid two euros and fifty cents as it had said on the sign.

 

Getting home I started researching and after several hours of research, and me coming to the conclution they might be genuine, I desided to email the company. By then I thought they might be genuine and from the early 80's. This proved true since the answer I got from RayBan after a few emails back and forth, was that they looked real but due to the lack of records from before 1999, they could not confirm it and suggested I'd contact Bauch&Lomb. Who suggested I'd contact Luxottica. A lot of emails and two visits to some local optics who sell RayBan glasses. I can say, with 99,9% scertenty, that I am the proud owner of a pair of genuine vintage RayBans from the Celebrities collection that was released in the 80's. They were likely manifactured and bought in the States and then braught back to Finland with the buyer.

 

Kram, Lexie