Randolph Aviators Made in Romania?

When one has the audacity to call onself an "expert" at something as mundane as aviator sunglasses, strange things are bound to happen.

Each week it seems something more interesting happens to me.

So, September slips cooly into the calendar and I receive a call from an interesting young lady named Kimberly.

She needs to replace some prescription lenses in a pair of Randolphs she purchased on eBay. 

Apparently the lenses in the frame were prescription lenses and she had called Randolph to get some non-prescription lenses.

Randolph does not sell those replacement parts direct to customers, so she was referred to me. I have been an Authorized Retailer for Randolph Engineering for many years.

So she calls me.

As we talked she mentioned that "Made in Romania" was engraved on the temples of the frame.

What???

This really piqued my interest!

Were they Fake Sunglasses?

Randolph sunglasses are manufactured in Randolph, MA and NOT in Romania!

Now I more curious, and I'm convinced more than ever that they are fake!

I sent her a shipping label and asked her to send them to me for my inspection.

In the meantime she sends me a photo of these Randolph Aviator sunglasses:

Wow, they sure don't look like any Randolph Aviators I have ever seen!

A quick review of the images of Randolph sunglasses does not show me any that look like these!

Are they fake?

Randolph Engineering 

So, I decide to contact my account executive at Randolph because I am sure they would want to know about this.

Today, there are so many knockoffs of popular sunglasses made in China that it is hard to keep up with them.

I mean, if they can copy our military equipment how hard can it be to make sunglasses?

Surprise!

I knew that Randolph also supplies sunglasses to non-US military pilots, but I assumed they supplied the exact same models as they supply to US military pilots.

It turns out that about 5 years ago Randolph made these sunglasses for Romanian military pilots!

They were NOT fake!

You see, aviator sunglasses as a business is interesting!

Until next week keep your eyes safe with a great pair of aviator sunglasses!

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