Early 1900s American Optical, Gold? Glasses

[Spartcom5]

I was out hunting garage sales and stopped by a HUGE antique store where most everything was overpriced. This place was massive yet I still spotted these glasses in a case. They were $7.50 and to me in the store they looked pretty good. I see no signs of wear on the frames and I read on AO website right around 1900-1917 they made several hundred thousand precious metal frames. Most were melted down over the years.... I feel good about these ones although I am not 100% sure. I can get the tested tomorrow electronically and will know then. What do you guys think?

 

[Drmad7]

Looking at the bridge...I say gold! Nice even if I'm wrong!

 

[Spartcom5]

Found these and mine is a lot better condition! Honestly could even be worn again by someone... Hopefully they are gold! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Ame...393459?hash=item544b49fef3:g:OEcAAOSwAKxWZP69

 

[flinthunter]

If I remember correctly, a lot of these are 1/20 12k gold.

 

[BIGSCOTT]

12k is 1/2 or 50%

 

[ARC]

If I remember correctly, a lot of these are 1/20 12k gold.

Agreed.
Rarely are these gold.

THIS type rather... Reason being is the ear wires... Gold does not handle repeated flexing very well... it is too soft.

MAny of these people "claim" on ebay and elsewhere as gold are in fact not gold.

They are always gold gilled.
And IF NOT gold filled the will be CLEARLY marked as gold... 99.9999999% of the time.

IMO.

 

[diggummup]

I have a couple pair that are marked 1/20 12k gold filled. I haven't run across any solid gold ones yet. Not to say they don't exist, but like you say, many were melted down back in the day. Antique gold was not always stamped or marked, we know that also.

 

[trdhrdr007]

I've been looking at these type eyeglasses for several years and have every local estate sale company asking me "is it gold" every time they get one. I've seen 2 that were gold & one of those was a Pince Nez.

 

[Spartcom5]

Had them tested and they are 10k gold. I need to run another test on them that can test for gold filled but it crosses out 12k gf for sure. They have a high chance of being solid.

Tested them 4 times with a electric gun and it was exactly 10k each time arms included.

 

[Drmad7]

I win! Well...nope. You win!

 

[Spartcom5]

Well I mean I guess for some odd reason they could be 10k gf still.... One interesting thing to note is that I was told gold can never be "springy" as in the arms in this case. Is there any truth to this statement at all?

 

[Spartcom5]

I can confirm these are the real deal!! They are for sure 10k gold solid. Surprised to see they survived this long glad I can save them!! So many of these were scrapped argh!

 

[bigdaddywittenauer]

I would say more gold filled than anything else. Even if gold filled there should be a hallmark on it somewhere.

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[JimDon]

Very nice!

 

[jerseyben]

I have come across several of these and they are always gold filled. Not saying yours definitely are but I would bet on it.

 

[Spartcom5]

Yea, I found these awhile back and they passed every test electronic and acid. I suppose they gold just be heavily gold filled but anyway I look at the results it's solid. Plus I know for a fact through some research American Optical did indeed make solid gold frames.

 

[bigdaddywittenauer]

Well I didn't know they did that.

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