Every serious coin enthusiest should have one. I got mine at "Radio Shak". It is a 3 loop one 5x 10x and 15x. Cost less than 6 dollars.
All depends on what your looking for. For example Walmart has a decent assortment mostly for kids in school for only a few dollars. Plastic from China of course. At flea markets I've seen entire desplays of them for from $0.50 to $10. There are scientific supply houses that sell really high grades of them for a decent price but then too, there is that postage stuff.
Not sure what you mean by affordable. I purchased a Bausch & Lomb 10x Hastings Triplet from Brooklyn Gallery for around $36. Very satisfied with it. IMO, great company for supplies. TC
Well, I got my magnifier at Michael's and am very disappointed with it... only paid about $15, so no big loss.
Hi quality magnifiers Another place to find high quality magnifiers is a company that caters to the geophysical prospecting community (for example, http://www.ascscientific.com/lens.html). The costs will be much higher than a simple (or dual) plastic lens costs, but the optical quality will be proportionally much higher:thumb:.
