From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Good Glasses Cheap
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:52:44 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: <ronkean at juno.com>
To: <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 7:06 AM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Good Glasses Cheap

>
> On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 06:21:06 -0400 Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net> writes:
> > Keith F. Lynch wrote:
> ... Glasses for nearsightedness ("minus"
> > > diopters) require a prescription, and inexplicably cost an order
> > > of magnitude more.
> >
> > Indeed.  When I was wearing contact lenses and my near vision
> > started to go, my optometrist recommended the "drugstore" glasses.
> Under $10,
> > if I remember correctly.
> >
>
> "Drugstore" reading glasses can sometimes be found at dollar stores,
> priced at only $1.  There is a good reason why distance glasses are much
> more expensive than off the shelf reading glasses.  There are only a half
> dozen or so diopter ratings for off the shelf reading glasses, so they
> can be manufactured, handled, and stocked like a commodity item.
> Distance glasses are made to finer gradations of diopter rating, and they
> provide astigmatism correction (most people have measurably astigmatic
> vision), and astigmatism correction has two dimensions of specification
> (axis and cylinder) so the number of different possible grindings might
> be in the thousands, ranging up to hundreds of thousands or even millions
> if one accounts for the variety of frames, more if one counts bifocals
> and trifocals.  A quick check of the 'Hour Eyes' web site shows they
> claim to offer over 1500 frame styles.  Obviously there are too many
> different possible prescription lens grindings to stock, so each pair of
> distance glasses is custom made and is therefore understandably more
> expensive than off the shelf, by the principle of economy of scale.
>
> If people could be persuaded to select their distance glasses from a
> stock set of half a dozen or so diopter ratings, with no customization
> for left eye versus right eye, and with no correction for astigmatism,
> and with a very limited selection of frame styles, then distance glasses
> could be much cheaper to buy that way.  In theory, one could visit a
> drugstore, peer into a self-service optometric machine, twiddle some
> dials to get an approximate measurement of one's vision, and walk out
> with glasses in minutes.
>
> In fact, I think the Lions Club has a program to supply glasses to people
> in need in very poor countries.  They take donated used eyeglasses and
> sort them to obtain a reasonable fit for those who could not otherwise
> afford glasses.
>
> Still, Keith may be on to something with the notion that distance glasses
> cost 'inexplicably' more.  My impression is that opticians have
> conditioned the public to believe that good glasses are necessarily
> expensive, much as funeral directors have sought to keep funerals and
> caskets as high priced as they can possibly be within the limits of what
> people can generally afford to pay, just as jewellers and the DeBeers
> cartel have spent the past century convincing people that gem quality
> diamonds are more valuable than they would presumably be without all the
> hype.  DeBeers helpfully suggests that a diamond engagement ring should
> cost 'about two month's salary'.
>
> In Rockville, it's easy to find glasses offered at about $200 per pair,
> and up.  It is possible get decent prescription glasses in Montgomery
> County for as little as $50 a pair, not counting the cost of an eye exam,
> though it sometimes takes a two for one deal to achieve a price that low.
>  So in that sense, $39 glasses from an internet based vendor might in
> fact be a good deal.  But when I looked at that web site, I was
> disappointed to find that all of the glasses they sell have plastic
> lenses.  They do not offer glass lenses.  Plastic presumably scratches
> more easily than glass.

Glass lenses have been illegal in this country for 30 or 40 years, by
federal law, due to the potential for injury should the glass break.   I
stayed with glass lenses I'd purchased in 1959 until the mid-'80s for this
reason.   (At that point they were making plastic lenses thin enough for me
to use them without unbearable distortion at the edges -- my left eye
requires a strong correction.)

--Ted White