Ful Vue Glasses

Antique Gold Eyeglasses from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, and Beyond

When many of our customers at Vintage Eyeglasses Warehouse think of vintage circular glasses, Ful-vue glasses (sometimes shortened to Fulvue) are one of the best representations of that style. These glasses made the small change of moving the arms from the middle of the lens edge to the top to give the wearer unobstructed vision and a more stylish look.

Our inventory at Vintage Eyeglasses Warehouse includes original vintage Ful-vue glasses and vintage glasses with nose pads from the 1920s to the 1930s. Each pair of glasses in our inventory is an authentic vintage piece that our team has restored to make it ready to fit with lenses of your choice. We are always updating our selection, so bookmark this page to stay up to date with our newest additions.

About Our Ful-Vue Glasses

For hundreds of years, glasses had kept largely the same design. The arms connected to the frames at the center edge of the circular or oval frames and ran straight back to the ear. This changed in the 1920s when American Optical patented their “Ful-Vue” design.

Instead of having the temples connect at the midpoint of the lens, they connected in the top corner. This lets the wearer look to the sides without an arm piece blocking their view. Now that more and more Americans were driving, having a full range of vision was important for road safety.

Consumers thought so too, or at least liked the look of the new Fulvue glasses. By the mid-1930s, other companies updated their offerings with similar designs, so it is also possible to find eyeglasses with the arms attached at the top from:

• Bausch and Lomb
• Art-Craft Optical
• Shuron
• Continental Optical

By the mid-1940s, Fulvue glasses and similar styles were the most popular frames on the market and had nearly replaced older styles. 

Design of Ful-Vue Glasses

The 1920s also saw the invention of the nose pad for glasses. American Optical incorporated nose pads into the fulvue glasses, creating the “Marshwood Style” eyeglasses. This made the glasses sit more comfortably on the face with the lenses further away from the eyes.

Despite these new innovations in glasses, the lens shapes stayed largely the same with options for:

• Round Lenses
• Oval Lenses
• Ovoid Lenses (Shaped like an egg.)

American Optical offered Fulvue eyeglasses and Fulvue sunglasses in their Marshwood style. Both used gold wire frames as glasses of the past had done, most often with gold plating. Many Marshwood glasses had 12K gold bonded to the frames.

While the gold wire frames of Ful-vue glasses would go out of style by the mid-1950s, the placement of the temples was revolutionary. Almost every pair of eyeglasses and sunglasses going forward used this design even as lenses changed shape and plastic frames replaced metal in 1950s glasses.

Our Selection of Vintage Circular Glasses

We carry original Fulvue glasses from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. All of our Fulvue glasses are in the Marshwood Style with comfortable nose pads for daily wear. Because of the more durable metal frames, there are many surviving Fulvue frames which makes it possible to find antique glasses in your desired size and shape.

The vintage appeal of Fulvue glasses along with their ease of wearing makes these frames one of our most popular styles at Vintage Eyeglasses Warehouse. Many of our customers will replace the demo lenses with prescription lenses for a unique set of eyeglasses, or turn them into sunglasses with tinted lenses. They also make good vintage props and collector’s items since all of our glasses are genuine antiques.

We invite you to browse our selection of vintage round glasses and recommend checking back regularly as we find and restore new Ful-vue glasses to add to our selection.