Gloss Jawbone Echelon

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I am so confused, I have a pair of jawbone's and I love them very much. But I paid under $150 for mine. Why is that pair worth my than double the price? The lenses is it just because of the transition ruby? Lastly is the gloss version the D version on the bottem or the regular one on top within the pictures?

 

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Same reason any pair has an elevated price, supply and demand. Why is a Romeo that sold for 250 bringing 1K in some instances? Same reason.

 

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I am so confused, I have a pair of jawbone's and I love them very much. But I paid under $150 for mine. Why is that pair worth my than double the price? The lenses is it just because of the transition ruby? Lastly is the gloss version the D version on the bottem or the regular one on top within the pictures?

The echelon was a limited edition for the Tour de France in 2011 so limited numbers and not readily available adds some value, I actually found the receipt and I paid $315 in canada with tax for them. Any jawbone with the transition lens always had a higher retail price despite the fact they only came with the one lens. The sheer fact that they were limited edition and still new with everything included meant they hold their value and even increased it slightly to the right person. These jawbones were the only time Oakley ever used the ruby transition lens so if you wanted it you had to pay the premium price. From what I read on the forum when these came out Oakley never promoted or even really admitted there was a gloss version just the matte version which is the more common pair to find, not sure that anybody ever knew how many pairs of echelon's were ever made but the gloss version was the harder one to find.

The gloss version is the pair on the bottom within the pics I posted.

I searched for any echelons for so long and the first pair I got I sold to a buddy of mine thinking I would find another pair without much effort, I was so wrong. Then I talked to a contact in a store and he had these so I bought them over the phone without seeing them and when I got them I received the gloss version so I never wore them because they were so rare. Then I heard that the vault stores got some and another member on the forum was wicked enough to pick a pair up for me and ship them to me without making a dime off me and those ones I wear, those are the matte ones in the pic with the violet lens.

The lenses from the matte pair have been used by me in numerous half ironmans, in a 6 hour race light conditions are bound to change and the transitions lenses were money for me on those days, add the ruby iridium to reduce glair and even if I wasn't as fast as a pro I looked the part.

It's all a supply and demand thing, look at the price some of the frogskins go for. There's pairs of those that are so limited they sell for thousands of dollars and you can buy any stock pair for $125 or whatever they are nowadays in the US.

 

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I'm still hoping we can hear the story about them. Come on xmetalmaniac share with us.

 

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Maybe @xmetalmaniac can move the thread as well?

 

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The echelon was a limited edition for the Tour de France in 2011 so limited numbers and not readily available adds some value, I actually found the receipt and I paid $315 in canada with tax for them. Any jawbone with the transition lens always had a higher retail price despite the fact they only came with the one lens. The sheer fact that they were limited edition and still new with everything included meant they hold their value and even increased it slightly to the right person. These jawbones were the only time Oakley ever used the ruby transition lens so if you wanted it you had to pay the premium price. From what I read on the forum when these came out Oakley never promoted or even really admitted there was a gloss version just the matte version which is the more common pair to find, not sure that anybody ever knew how many pairs of echelon's were ever made but the gloss version was the harder one to find.

Technically while touted Tour De France they were released almost two months earlier during the Tour of California. Worn by Levi Leipheimer, Andy Schleck and Chris Horner during that race and the pairs were slated only for independent bicycle retailers. The front running Oakley athletes that year in the tour were predominately wearing team kit colored jawbone and radars with Cadel Evans wearing Maillot Jaune yellow radars on the podium. Mark Cavendish was the leading (perhaps only) exception with the echelon frame (jawbone), and even those were a custom pair with green bolts, icons and jade lenses.

 

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Technically while touted Tour De France they were released almost two months earlier during the Tour of California. Worn by Levi Leipheimer, Andy Schleck and Chris Horner during that race and the pairs were slated only for independent bicycle retailers. The front running Oakley athletes that year in the tour were predominately wearing team kit colored jawbone and radars with Cadel Evans wearing Maillot Jaune yellow radars on the podium. Mark Cavendish was the leading (perhaps only) exception with the echelon frame (jawbone), and even those were a custom pair with green bolts, icons and jade lenses.

Touché

Up in Canada we are lucky to have tv coverage of le tour so when it comes to the tour of California we are stuck with streaming video which is usually poor quality so it's hard to tell what everybody is wearing. Honestly with the pixelated video everything looks like carbon to us.

 

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So which box is the gloss edition? the one with the D?

 

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No the other box is the gloss one, the box with the D is the matte frame and those came from a vault store in Canada.