CompuServe Messages

John: Another possible source of scopes, though probably inconvenient unless you live or have friends in Houston or Denver is oil company liquidation auctions. Every time the oil industry hits the skids and a new round of "downsizing and rationalization" occurs, some interesting items hit the "used office supplies" auctions. A friend of mine here in Calgary (action central in the Canadian oil biz) managed to get two scopes over the years from such auctions, as well as other neat stuff like map drawers and oil company library (ie geology) books. Having tried numerous scopes over the years, I've found that the weakest point in all of them is the rack-and-pinion focussing gears, which tend to get chewed up by boneheads trying to crank the knobs beyond their limits. Make sure the focussing action is smooth, from top to bottom! Also check alignment of the prisms & objective lenses at each power. If one or more of the combinations is painful to look through, it might have been dropped and knocked out of alignment. In my experience, the actual optics of the <$1000 scopes, though seldom breathtaking, is quite adequate, as long as the elements aren't cracked and are made by a well-known manufacturer (Baush & Lomb, American Optical, Tasco, Kyowa, Nikon, etc.). Often, an hour with a screwdriver, lens tissue and a careful hand can make an amazing difference to an old, dusty scope.