Deadstock Glasses or Deadstock eyeglasses are eyeglasses that are vintage but have never been used. Sometimes these vintage eyeglasses are referred to as unused, New Old Stock or simply NOS.
Deadstock glasses or New Old Stock eyeglasses can be as new as 20 years old or as old as a few hundred years old. Here at the Vintage Optical Shop the earliest New Old Stock glasses we ever sold were some Deadstock Pince Nez, a type of antique eyeglasses dating back to the late 1800's.
Deadstock eyeglass frames are brand new in the sense that they have never been worn, but are often very old. Most of our cat eye glasses are deadstock and have never been worn. Sometimes they may have been tried on for fit but have never been sold on a retail level and have never been worn. Thus the name New Old Stock.
People often ask us if new old stock frames can have lenses put in. The answer is yes. If the frames were stored properly and did not lose their structural integrity over the years there is no issue with putting lenses in them. We will never sell deadstock frames, or any frames, that can not have lenses put in.
New Old Stock eyeglasses often come in their original sleeve. Back in the day vintage eyeglasses and antique spectacles were sold to optical shops in their original paper or material sleeve with the temples disconnected from the front. The screws for these vintage frames were often in small plastic packets stapled to the sleeve the temples came in. The optician had to remove the eyeglass frames from the sleeve and attach them to the front. Dead stock frames that were stored in their original sleeve are generally in perfect condition and can easily have new prescription lenses put in.
Most companies selling New Old stock eyeglasses or deadstock eyeglass frames are selling frames from the 1980's and 1990's. It is hard to make general statements about the scarcity of deadstock eyeglass frames since every frame is diifferent and many deadstock eyeglasses were scarce even at the time they were manufactured. However, as a general rule it is safe to say that the older the frames are the harder they are to find in New Old Stock condition. Frames from the 1990's and 1990s are more common. Being that this wasn't that long ago it is easier to find deadstock eye glasses. It is much harder to find New old Stock 1960's eyeglasses or 1950's eyeglasses that were never used.
We focus more on older frames, pre 1970's eyeglass frames. We have a much easier time finding deadstock 1960's cat eye glasses than we do finding 1920's eyeglasses. Sometimes we are able to find an old box of unused deadstock pince nex glasses or windsor antique spectacles from the early 1900's, but that is rare and more often the deadstock frames we have are from the 1960's.