Desktop Magnifiers

I bought one like those, it had the black spiral support it worked good for awhile , then it seems the support got weak and kept on dropping down.

 

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American Science & Surplus. www.sciplus.com or call toll free 888-724-7587 or fax 800-934-0722 with a technical support at 847-647-0011
Ask for thier catalog, page 40 in the jan. 2007 one I have shows a page full of all kinds of magnifiers.
Magnifier lamps, head mounted with lights, folding ones, Super Loupes and on and on and on. At thier store they have an entire aisle full of every type of magnification thing you could imagine. Magnifing glasses you wear, binoculars, telescopes, microscopes and on page 42 they even have a magnifier-whistle combo not that I could ever see a use for that.
They also sell sensitive scales for weighing coins and if you want to solar panel your table lamps, they also sell solar panels.

 

I must be getting old. Forgot the biggest supplier of magnification devices in the World possibly. www.scientificsonline.com
Or call 800-728-6999
Virtually pages and pages of every type of desk top magnification items possible. Some of them even have a variety of magnifications and focal distances in my catalog from them.
Also, a massive variety of microscopes, telescopes, lenses, etc.

 

It depends on what you are trying to do.

It depends on what you are trying to do and yes I have aged my eyes well over 20 years of my actual age of 55 right now. A couple of thoughts: Those desktop magnifiers are not very fine quality or strong and I think even if you used one you would end up going to your loupe to see "what you think you saw" with those.

What are you doing most? If general looking at coins for grading never use anything bigger than a 5X and a nearby 60 watt bulb. If your using a 10x for this you are unnessarily working your eyes to hard.
If for die varieties you have no choice but to use a 10x or 14x followed by a 20x for additional close work. These will damage your vision.
I look at from 2500 to 7500 Lincoln's each week and I will "pay the price", already am.

While you are looking at coins and if near a window with trees outside about every 10 minutes or so relax your eyes and let them look at green trees or something neutral in the distance - this will relax your eyes and keep the strain down.

Be careful what you get hooked on - if a 10x you will have difficulty with most everything else and will want to gravitate back to what is familiar.
Buy the very best available such as Bausch and Lomb Hastings Triplet no matter what the cost - those are your eyes after all. There may be a couple of as good or better German ones also. The Bausch and Lomb are going to be around $50 each but are guaranteed forever and well worth the money.

Sidebar::: One of the South's finer dealers that come to my show never uses a loupe at all - he actually grades and prices instantly as he sees the coins and takes no longer than 30 seconds to do all that.

 

I'm going to guess he got them at Harbor Freight, at least the 2x, 3x, 5x, 7x and 10x loupes. $3 for the set.

They also have this 20x-30x combo for $2

My wife thinks this is hilarious but I have found that this is indispensable for close up things like roll searching. And it has built in LED lights. $6

Of course, none of these are the lighted desktop magnifiers the OP was talking about.

 

Carl, thanks I'll check it out. Sounds like a great site!

 

Ben thank you very much, your insite is very helpful as always...In looking at the desktop ones you are right so far only up to 5x is the strongest ive found. Was looking for stronger as I wanted to try my hand at die varieties. So I guess I'll stick with a loupe.

 

If you have two good eyes, a stereo microscope is wonderful and you see your coins in 3D.

 

I'm afraid he is completely wrong as to quality. Edmund Scientific is known for extreamely high quality in all types of lenses. If you order thier catalog you would see you can order a large variety of powers in table top types of such magnifications. Example in my catalog there is one on page 142 for 2.3X, 2.7X, 5X and 7X and with different focal lengths. On page 138 they have some with 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9X powers. They also have them with all types of lighting. Hand held types on pages 135 go from 7X to 20X.
Many of thier optics are the highest quality money can buy. Some of thier telescopes are used in colleges for Astronomy classes. Medical labs also order thier products.
Statements about the poor quality of those products are just not true.
Check out their web site and order a catalog.

 

One more thing for anyone with a real interest in direct measuring microscopic systems you really should check out Edmund Scientific. Not sure about the latest catalog but in mine on page 150 they have a Sony camera system, microscope, monitor, multi-calibrating micrometer, that will do wonders for your coins. So with this you could not only enlarge but measure and document all coins.

 

Now there's a thought!

 

Thanks Carl I'm headed to their web site now...

 

Here is my desktop magnifier. LOL Well it fits on my desktop!

 

And what did that cost? Am I going to hafto remortgage my house?

 

The scope was under $300 at the time. They are over that now. The lighting I got at a Bookstore, hopped it up with some help from Radio Shack. You then need a camera and a Photo editing program and 10 years experience using it all and you be right up there with me. Save the house, show around for the best deal for what you want a little at a time.

 

I have some questions about your setup there coop. Does the color match the room it's all in? shouldn't that coat hanger wire be replaced with a more professional clip? LIght switch cover appears to be pointing to two different places? Did height adjusting books come with the scope? :goofer:

 

I posted this earlier...check out what the professionals use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAQv6qmGcis

 

Carl: The light switch cover arrows was sowing how I used the adjustment cover as the holder to hold the tube in place. As far a being sturdy, I taken Thousands of images with this setup and it has never let me down except on circulated coins. The light need to be brighter for them, but I make do and try to use BU/Proof coins to image as much as possible. When I need an obverse/reverse image of a circulated coin I have to put the thinking cap on to get what I want.
Sometimes Ideas work other times I jump into a black hole.

 

coop: I was joking. Funny stuff. Don't take it so serious. All in all a great setup.

 

Very creative