This column by John Cosway is a mix of 50 years of media memories and 15 years of buying and selling experiences via live and online auctions, flea markets, antique stores and markets etc.

Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   Cosway's Corner - Falling Out of Favour museum?   Let's take a look at advances in eyesight   By John Cosway Now, let's see . . .   Pity the caveman with poor eyesight. No L-P-E-D eye charts. No corrective eyeglasses, contact lenses, monocles, opera glasses, laser eye surgery, corneal transplants.   We can't help but feel empathy for all of the Mr. Magoos before magnification was first comprehended in the days of Nero in the 1st century AD.   Nero was said to have held an emerald to an eye to watch gladiators fight, but it was an unknown inventor around 1000 AD who crafted blown glass into reading stones.   Thereafter, there were countless small steps over the centuries involving eyesight and enhanced vision - and numerous kudos are owed to the men and women in the field.   People like Salvino D'Armate, who created the first pair of eyeglasses in Italy in 1284. They sat on the nose without ear rests, an advancement not realized until 1718 when Edward Scarlett, a British optician created specs with ear support.   Another round of applause for Benjamin Franklin, who is credited with the invention of bifocals in 1784, saying he tired of carrying and wearing two pairs of glasses.   The French lay claim to the invention of opera glasses in the early 1800s and while inventor/artist Leonardo da Vinci sketched contact lenses in 1508, they did not become a reality until the 19th century.   Contacts were a lengthy process of trial and error. Fortunately, along the path of progress, opticians got well beyond Thomas Young's 1801 idea of "a water-filled glass tube attached to a tiny lens, which he fitted over his own eye."   Sir John Herschel, a 19th century astronomer is credited with first proposing making a mold of an eye to make contacts. That was in 1827. Sixty years later, German glassblower F.A. Muller made the first known hard glass contact lens.   The more comfortable, but still not perfect, all-plastic soft contact lenses were introduced in 1948 by Kevin Tuohy, a California optician. Researchers have improved on Tuohy's corneal lenses, shrinking the size and weight for longer daily use and comfort.   Soft contacts became the standard commercially in North America in the 1970s.   For most people worldwide, eyeglasses do the trick, with some drawbacks.   Enhancing one of the most cherished of the five senses with eyeglasses has not been without social drawbacks, especially in superficial environs in the 19th and 20th century. .   Despite their advantages, eyeglasses were considered by many as a social handicap. On the negative side for males, it was appearing nerdish and being called "four eyes."   For females of all ages, the words of American writer Dorothy Parker in 1925 echoed loudly in their minds:   Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses.   Countless young women who took that to heart eagerly welcomed contact lenses. Another eyepiece with a history is the monocle, a corrective lens for a single eye. They have been iconic in the lives of actors, fictional characters, media mascots and even advertising logos.   An early mention of monocles is circa 1720s, with Philipp von Stosch, a Prussian "connoisseur of antiquities," using one to examine engravings and cameos. But it would be another century before their use became widespread.   Monocles, a wire-rimmed eyepiece attached to string to avoid loss, have been worn by a wide range of people, mostly men, and fictional characters, including Planters Peanuts' Mr. Peanut, top hat and all.   Mr. Peanut, spawned by a 1916 company logo contest won by a 14-year-old high school student, wears a monocle .The monocle, along with spats, cane and top hat, was added by an artist. Mr. Peanut today is the subject of numerous North American collector clubs.   Another fictional, monocle-wearing character we knew and loved was Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen's smart-talking, 40-pound pine puppet that entertained millions in vaudeville shows, on radio and television, on stage and in movies before Bergen died following a performance at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in September 1978.   The Chicago-born ventriloquist and actor was in his teens when he paid a bartender/woodcarver to create Charlie's head. They made their radio debut on the Rudy Vallee show in 1936 and from 1937 to 1956, entertained audiences on their own show.   They were also on TV and in movies, but something we didn't know? There were several Charlies.   "The fact is there were more than one Charlie, but the exact number is not known," Dan Willinger, host of ventriloquistcentral.com told the Wayback Times. "One is in the Smithsonian, one is in the Radio Museum in Chicago, one is in the David Copperfield collection and Copperfield also owns the frowning Charlie.   Copperfield, the world famous magician, paid $112,500 for one of his Charlies, monocle and all, at a Sotheby's auction in 1995.   The likeness of Charlie McCarthy is now highly collectable. Everything from teaspoons ornament radios, dolls, tumblers, replacement monocles etc.   Meanwhile, The New Yorker's longtime Eustace Tilley, a monocled cartoon character drawn by Rea Irvin, the magazine's first art editor, has appeared on the cover regularly since the first issue in 1925.   A generation of Hogan's Heroes TV viewers was exposed to the monocle, worn by German-born stage and screen actor Werner Klemperer strictly as a prop in his Colonel Klink German POW camp role. The show ran from 1965 until 1972.   Klemperer was so endeared to the eyepiece prop, he kept it with him in a cloth case as a memento for many years after the series was cancelled. But, as he told talk show host Pat Sajak in 1989, "someone swiped it." Sajak presented a replacement on the show. See it on YouTube   Probably the most recognized monocled stage, TV and screen actor was Charles Coburn, who wore one out of necessity, not for show. Coburn, who died in 1961 at age 84, can be seen wearing his trademark monocle in numerous movies and TV appearances.   On the sports front, major league baseball umpires are often urged by fans to wear glasses, but eyeglasses are not foreign to players. Pitcher William "Will" White was the first major league player to wear them on the field and that was in 1877.   When White, born in Canton, N.Y., and died in 1911 in Port Carling, Ontario, retired from baseball in 1886 after an impressive nine years in the major leagues, he became an optician and founded his own company.   Meanwhile, Dom Dimaggio, born in 1917, was the first baseball player to wear eyeglasses all through childhood to major league play because of myopia.   The shatterproof, horn-rimmed glasses he wore on the field during his major league career in Boston - 1937 to 1953 - earned Joe Dimaggio's younger brother the nickname Little Professor. What he taught was eyeglasses need not be an impediment to success.   Singer John Denver wore a steel-framed style called Marshwood, which were the first to have nose pads and often contained gold wrapping.   As collectables, vision aids have an enviable track record at auctions.   In March, an Indian business tycoon purchased Mohandas Gandhi's iconic Windsor eyeglasses in a leather case, along with a few other personal items, for more than $2 million at a New York auction so the independence leader's glasses could be repatriated.   Opera glasses in Abraham Lincoln's hands the night he was assassinated in Ford's Theatre in 1865 are said to be worth more than $4.25 million.   In 2007, a British collector purchased a pair of John Lennon's 1966 orange-tinted glasses at auction for an undisclosed price, later said the be in the one million pounds range. Lennon had given the glasses to a Japanese interpreter while on tour.   Buddy Holly's trademark black horn-rimmed eyeglasses sold for $14,500. The Hard Rock Cafe bought them during a 1990 Holly memorabilia auction in New York. The young rock star was killed in a Feb. 3, 1959, plane crash.   So not only clothes make the man. For many, including John Lennon, Groucho Marx, Charles Coburn and Benjamin Franklin, eyewear has done the same.   Just ask British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore. He wears a monocle.      Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2009 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster