Aloha O-Review. Just picked up a Valve 1.0 that I thought was fake, because of some differences. But after really looking into the pair, I'm starting to believe this is an actual Oakley pair. Anyway I got this off of feebay. I asked the seller about it and he/she said it was a gift from some relative from some past occasion. Can't remember what relative, what year, nor what occasion. Just that it was recently found in storage and that the/she is/was the current owner. Seller said he/she is not a collector and that's all they have. The feebay listing said it was new and the end of the auction was almost a week away still. I messaged the seller saying I'm bummed they didn't have a buy it now option. As I might've pulled the trigger fast if the price is right. Seller messaged back and changed the listing and I pressed buy as fast as I could. Got it for $125. Great for something listed as new. Was listed as a black Valve 1.0 with polarized black lenses.

The first thing I noticed was the matte finish and no bridge text. Wasn't expecting that. Photos used for the sale were cr@p. Then I noticed the text on the right ear stem looked bigger than normal. And on the right ear stem the word VALVE is there. Though not as pronounced as the texts normally are. I started to think fake at this point but wanted to investigate further. So I popped an ear stem off and immediately noticed a weight difference. Then I realized the pair itself was quite heavier than normal. I quickly narrowed it down to the lug. Somehow this lug is made of metal. It's quite heavy and I have photos to show the weight difference to a regular plastic lug. I gotta tell you that if this piece is fake, someone went way outta their way to forge what is basically an exact duplicate of a real lug. Unreal craftsmanship. Very unlike people trying to make fakes.

I did notice a difference on the mounting piece for the nose rubbers. The rubbers came off like how a regular rubber comes off. It's just the mounting piece on this questionable pair was slightly wider. Thank goodness the owner said they never used the pair as it was pretty clean underneath the rubber. Which would've been an indicator of previous use. So lucked out big time on that. The polarized lenses are kinda weird to me. It almost looks like it was literally cut from another pair as it doesn't look like it sits quite right. Something I seen when cutting lenses myself from something that has a different base curve. It goes in and stays. Just that I can see daylight on the edges where it's not seated 100% properly. If the previous owner wasn't even a collector, I doubt they would change the lens. Maybe original relative? Weird huh?

Then I started looking deeper and noticed the casting marks on the frame were the same as a regular Valve 1.0. I have pictures of that to show side by side. After a while I started leaning back towards a real pair. Especially after I did a strength test on the ear stems and frame. Sorry. I had to try and thankfully I didn't break anything. But I gotta tell you that I don't know if I can 'break' this. As I believe this is Oakley O-matter.

So my question to you Oakley experts is, was there ever a special model made? Like perhaps an employee only pair of Valve 1.0's that have metal lugs.

I'm realizing I forgot to mention that when I went to take out the screw holding the lug to the ear stem, I realized my T5 wouldn't fit. And found out it was a T8. A Torx screw like Oakley uses regularly.

Sorry. Noticed photos doesn't upload in the correct sequence. So my photos are actually out of order.

The lug with the blueish looking ear stem, was me trying to see if my regular Valve ear stem will fit, and sure enough it did. So this Valve can swap parts. At least that crazy metal lug.

My guess is the lug is made of titanium. But how do you test that without damaging the finish.

A couple ways to test here, none of which I have done personally so proceed at your own risk.

https://www.madearia.com/blog/how-to-distinguish-titanium-from-stainless-steel-and-aluminum/

I already put that pair back together so no parts are lost, and put it away for safe keeping. Not sure if there's any good non-intrusive test other than the scratching glass test. As heavy as it feels, I want to rule out aluminum. I am an electrician that deals with copper and aluminum wires. And I am fully aware of the weight difference between the two. I believe if that piece were aluminum it would be a little lighter than what it feels like now.

So far no ones said anything. One OF guy doesn't think it's fake and neither do I. It's far too exacting on the details to be the work of a counterfeiter. I've never seen a fake Valve 1.0. Yet.

Well I don't have photos from last night. But because I had a beater Ducati Valve coming in yesterday, I figured it was guaranteed that the lens is Oakley as long as the word Ducati was on it, So I decided to do a lens swap with the 'proto' Valve 1.0. And found out that the 'proto' frame is exactly the same size, as the polarized lens that was in this frame fit nicely in the Ducati frame. To me, this test makes this pair even less likely to be a fake. Does this Valve have the experts stumped?

And collectors don't worry. I'm not wearing this pair, and am planning on keeping it locked away just in case this is a one-off of some kind. Yes it's a shelf whore and I don't like shelf whores. But I love Valve 1.0's and love the idea I may have a piece of Oakley history on my collection.

Cool find. I would lean toward it being one of the thousand iterations of true product development prototypes for any given model, but without proper provenance from the development team or someone of notoriety within Oakley (no, someone from customer support or telesales does not count), my opinion is rather meaningless.

That said, during that time period, Oakley did test metal in their O Matter models. There is a Splice with the metal upper orbital and pin holding the arms in that was verified and validated by Peter Yee, so perhaps this was in the same lineage of product development.

Or it could be just someone who wanted to test their machining skills and tools and created metal lugs for a Valve he had on hand. Like how Trevor Hirschi replicated and machined the complex Rogue DZN Revolver ring to test his skills before he started Titan Ring Designs.

Cool stuff, either way.