I have always gotten my glasses made in the U.S. One of the reasons is that I was scared off of buying glasses in Japan because they were too expensive. I remember, many years ago, checking out prices for glasses in Japan and getting really high numbers quoted back to me. Maybe I was asking in the wrong places, but it was impression that this was a normal thing. So I have always gotten them when I go to the U.S. for visits.

This time around, however, I lost the prescription I had had made for me before I went to the U.S., and so I was not able to get glasses made when I went back. In the S.F. Bay Area at least, the glasses shops refuse to make a new pair for you without a prescription that is less than a few years old; you cannot simply bring in your existing pair and have them make a new pair based on that.

In Japan, however, there is no such restriction. Sachi and I were at Tokyu Hands and we passed by the “Coolens” outlet. We looked around and found a nice frame (at lower left in the image above; I still like my old pair better, but couldn’t find a similar frame here or in the U.S.), and then asked about getting the lenses made. To my surprise, the arrangement was pretty cheap; their cheapest set, including lenses and everything, is about $50 US. The price on each frame was the price including lenses (with UV and scratch-resistant coatings); you pay more for extras, like getting thinner lenses. But the main thing for me was that they would gladly measure the lenses right there and make a new pair for you, no prescription required. So we ordered the new pair–$92 for the basic pair, with an additional $76 for making them a lot thinner than basic. Not the cheapest in the world, but comparable to the prices I checked out in the U.S., and a lot cheaper than they used to be in Japan.

Can anyone out there confirm my impression that glasses used to be a lot more expensive here, and fill me in on when they got cheaper?