I recently visited an oddities store that sold glass eyes, and I suddenly realized that I never did a search for glass eyes in the newspaper archives. Not wanting to miss out on a good time, I began reading articles about glass eye con artists, a glass eye for a horse, and other assorted weird tales.
1. The Glass Eye Con
The glass eye con was quite popular in the 1950s and would be pulled off by two men. First, a well-dressed gentleman would enter a store, look at the goods, and then quickly put a handkerchief to his eye. Next, he would look around on the floor for a moment and then tell the store clerk that he lost his glass eye. He would then offer the clerk a $100 reward for the glass eye and say he was staying at an upscale hotel.
Shortly afterward, another man would come into the store, look around, and “find” the glass eye. He would show it to the clerk, and, of course, the clerk wanted to claim the $100 reward. However, the finder would refuse to give up the glass eye without getting paid a finder’s fee, and so the clerk would offer him half the money.
The finder would leave with the $50, and the clerk would discover that there was no glass-eyed gentleman at the hotel. [Source: The daily record. (Dunn, N.C.), 19 Aug. 1953.]
2. Faked Losing an Eye
Co-writer of “The Silver King,” Henry Herman was reported in 1914 to have taken a cabby to a dinner party. The author, however, was completely broke and could not pay the cabby for the ride. When they were close to the author’s destination, the cabby whipped his horse. Herman let out a cry and jumped out of the cabby with his glass eye in hand.
The terrified cabby, thinking he had just knocked someone’s eye out of its socket, rushed off into the night without asking for the fare. [Source: The day book. (Chicago, Ill.), 13 Oct. 1914.]
3. Smuggling Inside Glass Eye
While glass eye cons were popular, there was another dark trade involving glass eyes: smuggling.
According to a rumor published in 1910, a glass-eyed gentleman frequently traveled to Europe for business. In addition, he did a bit of gem trading on the side to supplement his income.
To avoid customs, he would place two or three diamonds in the cavity of his glass eye. Then, when he returned to the states, his employer would pay him half the duty saved on the smuggling job. [Source: The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.), 23 July 1910.]
4. Lost and Found
Glass-eyed criminals weren’t the only ones written about in the old newspapers. There were also reports on people who lost their glass eyes in unsuspecting ways.
For example, a Kansas man, George Barker, lost his glass eye while hunting for raccoons. Eighteen years later, in 1939, another man was fishing in a creek near one of Barker’s old hunting grounds and found a glass eye.
Barker was quick to claim it. [Source: Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 24 Feb. 1939.]
5. Lost His Marble
W.T.P. Nelson of Massachusettes, described in a 1930 article as a “well-known local character,” lost his glass eye while being arrested for drunkenness.
As fate would have it, a boy found it and began using it as the target in the game of marbles. He won 500 marbles with the glass eye and was not quite willing to give up the lucky charm. Nelson had to buy back his glass eye from the boy with a piece of silver. [Source: New Britain herald. (New Britain, Conn.), 18 April 1930.]
6. Glass Eye Causes Beating
Next, we have a slew of cases of wrongful looking. There were numerous reports in the past of men getting into fights over the glance of a glass eye.
For example, in 1902, James Reynolds was traveling by railroad when a cinder got into his good eye. As he tried to get the cinder out of his eye, his glass eye pointed towards a woman sitting by her husband.
Reynolds squinted as he tried to get the cinder out. His lid closed over his glass eye, and the woman across the aisle thought he was winking at her. His eye blinked again and again over his glass eye until the woman’s husband grabbed an umbrella and began beating Reynolds over the head with it.
Only after the umbrella broke did the other passengers break up the assault and inform the enraged husband that the man he had attacked had a glass eye. [Source: The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho), 06 May 1902.]
7. A Freak Collector
Finally, in 1908 it was reported that Ike Smalley had a collection of expensive glass eyes. Ike had lost an eye while fighting fighting for his brother-in-law. He bought a basic $20 glass eye, but quickly became obsessed with glass eyes.
Being wealthy, he began buying glass eyes of all sorts. As an acquaintance told the newspapers:
“He bought light blues, dark blues, browns, hazels, and all kinds of combinations, all of which diverted attention from his live eye. He used the artificial eyes like an English duke would his collection of stark pins, and soon had a different glass eye for every day in the week and two or three for Sunday.”
But this was simply not enough for Ike. He had a glass eye artist create eyes with pictures on them instead of the pupil and iris.
According to Ike’s acquaintance, “He had a velvet-lines leather case with 24 eyes in it. There were fish, game, flies, elks’ heads, steamships, yachts in full sail, bulldogs, insects, actresses, an automobile, a monogram, and a lot of plain eyes of different colors.” [Source: The Newark journal. (Newark, Ark.), 14 Feb. 1908.]
I once met a man who had a snow globe for a glass eye. He would wear it when he went to the bar for a conversation starter.
That is awesome!