Well over a year ago, I bought a turn-of-the-century pair of spectacles off ebay for around $5. One of the pulled-wire temples was broken, and I had it repaired before I got lenses cut for the hardware, which consists of a padless bridge, the hinges, and the temples. Unfortunately the temple repair was poor and broke immediately.

I waited a couple of months and got a different retro-styled pair of glasses, more mid-twentieth-century in style, but was always a bit sad that the other pair hadn’t worked out as hoped. In addition to the style, they were my third attempt at bifocals.

This morning as I got up I realized that my eyes were really kind of bothering me and that I should try to use the old bifocals at the computer today. As I went and rummaged for them I realized that I had another pair of frames, found long ago, which had temples that might fit the Victorian pair. After a bit of struggle with the screws in each pair of frames, I had the temples free and slid the good pair into the rimless hinge-set. They fit perfectly, as did the securing screws, and so all day I have been looking at bits and pixels through polycarbonate blended bifocals held to my face with three pieces of century-old gold and two pieces of somewhat newer metal which may also be gold.

The tiny size of the lenses means the new specs weigh less than any pair of glasses I have previously worn.

I don’t think these glasses will become my driving or going out glasses – the head-nod up-and-down I go through to see my feet while walking means that I won’t likely be comfortable with these for any other use than reading or computing. But otherwise, I’m happy about this in complicated ways that include a miser’s joy, a tinkerer’s satisfaction, and an antiquarian’s pleasure.