Just saved a fortune on a Lightbridge 16!

[calibos]

With the Strength of the Pound a few months ago before the current economic crisis, I always found that for me in Ireland, fellow eurozone member Germany were always cheaper for astro products than the UK.

So I could but dream of a Meade 16inch Lightbridge to replace my Orion XT12i at a price of 2400 euros in Germany. I assumed the price in the UK when the pound was converted to euros would be the same.

Well tickle me pink when the other day after hearing that the weakening pound might hit parity with the euro I re-examined UK Meade pricing. Well I'll be, Meade have a US and UK discounted price of GBP1075 till January when the price goes back up to GBP1499. Posted this on my regular Irish forum and another member posted back cursing me for tempting him. He was the same, ie. he assumed the price for a LB16 was still 2400 euros. But not only that, he had found that TelescopeHouse were doing a weekend discount of 10% bringing the price of an LB16 down to GBP968!! He begged his wife, got permission and ordered one before she could change her mind when she realised this probably meant lesss money spent on her this Christmas I only found this reply in my thread on Sunday at 11:41pm. I made a quick spur of the moment decision and just about got my order in before midnight!

I should have my new LB16 by the end of the week. So keith and John got our 16in Lightbridges for 1080 euros while Heinrich and Hans are still paying........2400 euros!!

Gordon Brown and the weakening Pound........This Paddy salutes you!!

[A McEwan]

Spectacular result! Great timing there! :mrgreen:

[calibos]

Thanks Mate

Another great thing is that Orions pricing remains the same at about 1250 Euros for a new XT12i or over 1600 Euros for the new XX12, ie. it hasn't fallen by a relative amount as the Lightbridge, so I should still get a decent price for my modded to the hilt XT12i. I've gained on the one hand without losing on the other.

Its actually like my parents recent house sale and purchase. The Irish property market is falling big time like the UK's. The areas hit first in the downturn were the 1 bedroom cardboard apartments at the bottom end of the market and the expensive properties at the top end. The parents were able to get a bargain on a reasonably expensive property that the falling market had already affected but were able to sell their current mid market property at not much less than its peak value because this segment of the market had not felt the full affects of the housing slump yet.

They too gained on the one hand but did not lose on the other. The parallels don't stop there. Just like I got my order submitted minutes before the end of the weekend discount deadline, they got their mortgage approval just before the proverbial hit the fan and the banks stopped approving mortgages.

Its about time things started going right for us!!

[philsail1]

"Calibos"

Sound aas if you are now on a roll - with luck like that, make sure you do the "Euro" Lottery this Saturday! (remeber me if you win!).

Best of luck!

philsail1

[RobH]

Well done Calibos...a good Christmas present!

For the last few years I've been paid in dollars, and have seen every wage rise I've negotiated eaten up by the strength of sterling....until a couple of months back. Now the mortgage has gone down and my wages have shot up.....no complaints from this Brit.

Cheers

Rob