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Late-19th-century shooting spectacles with amber clear-center lenses surrounded by frosted glass, set in a remarkably lightweight metal frame with fine wire temples.
This distinctive form appears in American sporting and optical catalogs beginning in the early 1870s. The frosted outer field restricts peripheral vision while leaving a clear amber central viewing area—an early purpose-built approach to controlling the shooter’s field of vision.
Often described in the antiques trade as “Civil War sharpshooter glasses,” surviving period research places this familiar clear-center form after the Civil War, with documented examples appearing c. 1870–1874. By the 1890s the same optical form was also marketed as “scenery spectacles.”
Approximately 4⅜ inches across the frame front. Delicate wire temples extend approximately 5 inches from the hinges. Please see measurement photographs for scale.
Original antique condition with oxidation, surface wear and age-related distortion to the extremely fine metal frame. Frame is somewhat uneven/bent from age. Lenses remain striking, with wear consistent with age; see detailed photographs for condition.
A scarce piece of late-19th-century sporting and optical history.
Reference
Clear-center shooting spectacles are illustrated in the Charles Parker Illustrated Catalog of Domestic Hardware, c. 1870–1872, and the Spencer Optical Manufacturing Company catalog of July 1874. Historical research into Civil War-era eyewear found no documented evidence tying this familiar clear-center form to soldiers during the war; by 1893, related orange-glass examples were also widely sold as “scenery spectacles.”
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History holds a comparable metal-and-glass example cataloged under “Shooting Spectacles / shooting glasses.”
