Thought For TPG Slabs

Interesting discussion, my eyes aren't what they used to be either. Not that they ever were great. Glasses in my single digit years, then contacts for 15 years, then my eyes got mad at them, then Lasik 23 years ago, one of the first to get it done when it became available in the U S. Some of the best money I ever spent. But I had to get back into glasses with bifocals a couple of years ago. And I still feel like I can't see like I used to. I find I just don't look at small coins much anymore, and maybe that is part of it.

There is a magnifier app for smartphones though, I've used it to look at coins if I forget my hand lens.

 

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I'm really, really looking forward to good head-mounted/eye-mounted displays. I just hope I can preserve my vision long enough to use them.

Look down at a coin on the table. The eye-tracker on your glasses identifies which point on the coin you're looking at, and focuses the front camera at that exact distance.

You move your facial muscles just so, and an overlay of the coin replaces the real image in your field of view. A different facial gesture zooms in or out; as you look at different parts of the zoomed image, the camera maps them back to the coin in front of you, and tracks its focus accordingly. If you've put in the time practicing, you can use other facial gestures to adjust brightness and contrast, maybe even enhance or mute color. You won't even think about it, you'll just do it automatically, by reflex.

If you see something interesting, tap your teeth lightly to take a photo, annotated with time, distance, scale, lighting characteristics, and point of visual attention. Clench your teeth ever so gently to record video as you turn the coin. The glasses know where to put it so you'll be able to find it later.

We already know how to do most pieces of this, it's just that the hardware is bulky. But we all know what happens to electronic hardware bulk once a market develops...

 

Leuchturm has Magnicaps - a domed, magnified capsule for smaller coins. They're not TPG slabs, but for raw coins they may be worth a shot. You can buy it and see if you like the idea in practice or not.

 

Hey, buck-up...cataracts are just around the corner and you can have implants that might give you 20-20 vision again

 

This I like. A lot.

 

I was wondering how they stack?

 

Well Randy, I too have old eyes so I rely on getting really good photos of my smaller coins so I can enlarge and enjoy them on my laptop. Not exactly the same as holding the coin, but sure easier on my eyes.

 

I am guessing not very well. When I saw the post I thought this was a domed magnifier that you set over your coin. I went and looked it up and found it is a domed holder.

 

Talking about eyes... I became a candidate for cataract surgery 10+ years ago. The doctor offered four choices of lenses, 1) single vision lens adjusted to give me distance vision, but needing reading glasses 2) single vision lens adjusted to give close up vision but needing glasses for distance 3) fluid-filled lenses with built in leaf springs which would adjust for either close-up or distance vision (which he said he had never seen work) or 4) fresnel lenses which would work OK for both. I chose the frenel lenses and they are both good and bad. They are like the flat magnifiers that have concentric circles, and that is one drawback that some people tend to see concentric halos when looking at point light sources. That doesn't bother me, but it is true that the close-up focusing I used to be able to do is pretty much gone. My vision went from 20/800-20/1200 to 20/30-20/60, so I can't complain too much. I still need glasses with bifocals but not the coke-bottle lenses I used to wear. I use a magnifier when I want to check close-up details.

 

I can see scoobie snacks from a mile away with these things!

 

I was not aware of this "Cyclops" feature being a reality, although I had thought that such a thing would be useful for reading the date on my watch. I will have to search and see how pricey it would be to add this to my non-Rolex watch. That way I will know what the date is when I'm shopping for coins...

 

I’m at20/15 with my contacts too worn them for over 30 years. I wear the 30 day ones as well

 

Randy, I’m near and far sighted myself. Two pairs is a pain to say the least. I bought progressive glasses years ago and I’m very happy with them.

 

Did it take long for you to adjust to them?

 

More and more, I depend on images. It makes viewing coins really easy. At shows I take a glass and reading glasses.

 

My eyes are still pretty good, but somewhere along my journey I decided if I need magnification to fully appreciate a coin, then I don't want it in my collection. With a few exceptions, I've eliminated everything smaller than nickels, and have only a handful of those. Mostly it's quarter/shilling sizes and up for me.

 

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