alcapon1 I think you have provided good information in the first post of a well thought up thread and I have certainly gained some useful information about the related AS. You have taken time and effort to impart useful subject matter which I hope many can appreciate. A train of thought I use myself to manage my own collection, in particular in regard to collecting sets, is to make two simple divisions; production, and non production releases. If someone told me they had a complete AS set, I would expect them to have all the official releases, which would have been sold via a business. These items seem to be agreed upon among us with the exception of the Petterson 50 pair Frogskins. From my point of view, it was an official issue, sold in stores, with an artist behind it, and Oakley have stated they were AS, albeit "hand-crafted". The 50 were all of the same release, NOT 50 different releases, so if you have 1 pair, you have it, any more is a bonus. This was a 'production' glass. Now, some non production pieces include; +red Kozik Hijinx, night time pairs, hand painted Beyond Reason Frogskins, the 50 pairs entered to compete for the UK exclusive, resulting in the production WITK Hijinx, the pink & white Flores Gascan, Maya Hayuk Grapevine, polished Chantry, and likely others as well. These non production issues were not sold in stores, were made in micro quantity, and were not available to the public for purchase. Another analogy could be...a collector states he has ALL the Jawbones, which I would take to mean all the production issues, but I cannot conceive of anybody having every single pair including the non production issues, eg one off pairs for athletes etc. To me a general guide for a complete set is all the official issues, which are accountable, have a known number, and do not run off into the lesser known world of the prototype, samples, rep pairs, custom issues, Dr Chop, tiny hand out numbers for sports people etc.
As an aside, I remember some years ago being aware that the White City Supreme Frogskin was an artists pair, that there was a name of the person who designed the frame, and at that time there were fewer AS issues and that I had them all, and that this was part of that set. I remember thinking it was the best one, as that frame is just fantastic with the vibe of the heat and bustle and noise and the need to imagine a big picture of the greater part of the scene. Mind bending glass!! The microbags for the Supreme's were all of that frame as well, maybe I can unearth some more information on it from my Oakley literature material to establish evidence. I am not saying this is AS, but I have some confidence in my memory of it being so, but can't recall the facts behind that belief.
Yes, I agree and I really appreciate the support. I wanted to make a thread to be all inclusive so people can get the facts all in one place to decide themselves. I included secondary items as well to bolster this idea. The problem is that people want to state "Official" AS when simply they cannot include pairs outside this narrow concept, like Flores and C100 gascans. This is where the argument divides for people claiming items on an 'Official" nature which really does not exist. I for one have an original piece of artwork from the series...I consider it part of my collection even though people cannot buy such pieces mainstream. I have prints, clothing, displays, and so on which makes my collection more complete in a sense.
Non production items are rare hence the values associated with them. People here can agree that rarity is why we collect in the first place. I for one would rather have a pair of Flores hand signed opposed to not, I would rather have a super rare Chantry compared to a regular pair, I would like the event cards for their releases, clothing that match my sunglasses, and so on. These items enhance a collection yet there is nothing official about it. Another thing is rare items like these are collector dreams, people who have them don't let them go because they DONT fit into a traditional collection and there is nothing traditional about collecting sunglasses as well...