Delos at £419? Really??

[great_bear]

It’s a completely different issue.

Second-hand is good for items that are no longer available or stocked (such as the Baader Microguider Eyepiece) and the quality of second-hand goods is highly-variable. There is negotiation to be had (although I will concede that people purchasing sets of ZAO-II eyepieces for the sole purpose of taking them off the market and re-selling at crazy prices is dishonourable)

But there are many things you don’t want to buy second-hand. If I know an eyepiece will be a keeper, then I’ll buy new. I can (and have) bought Tele Vue eyepieces to investigate what they are like (such as the Plossls which I found I disliked) but once I’ve made my mind up (as I did with Delos) I want guaranteed units straight from the factory. 

It’s a different thing completely.

[PadrePeace]

6 hours ago, great_bear said:

It’s a completely different issue.

Second-hand is good for items that are no longer available or stocked (such as the Baader Microguider Eyepiece) and the quality of second-hand goods is highly-variable. There is negotiation to be had (although I will concede that people purchasing sets of ZAO-II eyepieces for the sole purpose of taking them off the market and re-selling at crazy prices is dishonourable)

But there are many things you don’t want to buy second-hand. If I know an eyepiece will be a keeper, then I’ll buy new. I can (and have) bought Tele Vue eyepieces to investigate what they are like (such as the Plossls which I found I disliked) but once I’ve made my mind up (as I did with Delos) I want guaranteed units straight from the factory. 

It’s a different thing completely.

I hear your argument great bear and agree about the care one must take buying second hand but you missed my point.
Those businesses setting the retail prices for us have a long chain of supply to deal with so have much less control over how much they can retail stuff for. If it’s too high it won’t sell and selling, not stocking, is the core function of their model else they loose to competition and go bust. Private sellers have no such chain constraining their price but often still ask too much.  Just take a look at Astro Buy Sell on any given day and the amount of stuff unsold tells its own story, at least to me.  Like I said it’s a market place in which businesses and individuals look to profit. 

 

[TheLookingGlass]

I just ordered two brand new Baader Morpheus eyepieces. A 12.5mm and a 9mm. Both were $900 CDN.

🤔 😲

[Don Pensack]

$450 CDN apiece for Morpheus = $346.50 USD.

In the US, they're $299, so you might have saved some by buying from a US retailer unless the shipping is really high.

But the UK price of £237 includes 20% VAT not charged for export, so even with the currency exchange, you could have saved a lot of $ by buying from the UK.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Don Pensack

[Andrew_B]

It's always frustrating to get caught by a price hike but we've been overdue one given the soaring inflation we've seen on top of less favourable exchange rates.

I managed to be lucky for once and decided to bite the bullet and invest in a Nagler zoom just before prices went up. One of the things that convinced me to buy said eyepiece was the excellent review by @DirkSteele in which he quotes the price it was going for back in May 2020 and it's the same as I paid a bit less than 3 weeks ago. When you consider how much everything else has gone up over that period, this recent increase seems pretty modest and I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier.

[great_bear]

Not really - when I did an inflation calculator on Delos from when I was buying them, the current price is about £100 too much.

There was a time in the UK when Delos and Pentax XW were about the same price - but just look at the price difference now…

 

[TheLookingGlass]

4 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

$450 CDN apiece for Morpheus = $346.50 USD.

In the US, they're $299, so you might have saved some by buying from a US retailer unless the shipping is really high.

But the UK price of £237 includes 20% VAT not charged for export, so even with the currency exchange, you could have saved a lot of $ by buying from the UK.

Yes, $299 USD. Shipping, (First class, which is the minimum rate and cost), is $37.02 USD  = $336.02 USD = $438.60 CDN, and possibly get hit by customs ,(more than likely) = $57.02 for a grand total of $495.62. If not hit by customs, it would be $438.60. Not much less, and possibly even more, lol.  Almost $50 to ship an eyepiece now, which is ridiculous, IMO. It used to be about $18 USD or so before that for First Class shipping. Priority shipping is even more of a gouge at $51.59 USD, which is almost $70 CDN !!!!

Time to stop ordering online now. LOL

Edited September 10, 2022 by TheLookingGlass

[Carl Au]

Everything TeleVue is over priced, as good as their gear often is. I have had loads of TV gear in the past, I am using a TV mount at the moment, a wonderful thing and in my opinion worth the 600 quid I paid secondhand for it and absolutely not worth the £1,600 pounds I have just seen it for sale for at FLO and the WSC.

TeleVue is great gear and realistically priced usually when purchased secondhand. 
 

I am just glad I am not in the market for buying so much as a filter, it’s going to be hard for some of us going forward, buying gas and electricity is going to be a lot more important than astronomy gear for lots of folks this winter, god bless them.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Carl Au

[Franklin]

15 minutes ago, Carl Au said:

buying gas and electricity is going to be a lot more important than astronomy gear for lots of folks this winter, god bless them.

We astronomers are actually quite a hardy bunch. I'm so used to sitting in the garden freezing my **** off that I very rarely heat my home, even in the winter!

I was brought up in a household that swore by hot-water bottles, extra blankets and "put another jumper on". In fact, if everyone used energy as sparingly as we astronomers do then I doubt that there would actually be an energy crisis.

[IB20]

Pentax XWs are still £279; I’ve never used a Delos but by most reports I’ve read there doesn’t seem a lot between the two ranges. No undercuts either 😃

[Carl Au]

47 minutes ago, Franklin said:

We astronomers are actually quite a hardy bunch. I'm so used to sitting in the garden freezing my **** off that I very rarely heat my home, even in the winter!

I was brought up in a household that swore by hot-water bottles, extra blankets and "put another jumper on". In fact, if everyone used energy as sparingly as we astronomers do then I doubt that there would actually be an energy crisis.

If it was just as simple as putting another jumper on. People are going to die this winter not just from cold, damp and mould is going to get them. 
 

Anyway this is well off topic so I will bow out.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Carl Au

[Louis D]

2 hours ago, Franklin said:

I'm so used to sitting in the garden freezing my **** off that I very rarely heat my home, even in the winter!

How do you avoid bursting pipes?  Here in Texas during Snowmageddon 2021, without power to run furnaces, many houses ended up with burst pipes in the walls, ceilings, and floors.  Do you folks rarely go below freezing in the winter despite being at 53°N?

[Carl Au]

16 minutes ago, Louis D said:

Do you folks rarely go below freezing in the winter despite being at 53°N?

Absolutely not, we get lots of ice and frozen soil here. 

[Franklin]

1 hour ago, Louis D said:

How do you avoid bursting pipes

Lagging, but it doesn't really get that cold in Britain, outdoor water pipes for sure if not bled. The winters used to seem more severe in the past.

[Don Pensack]

4 hours ago, IB20 said:

Pentax XWs are still £279; I’ve never used a Delos but by most reports I’ve read there doesn’t seem a lot between the two ranges. No undercuts either 😃

Pentax XW eyepieces have undercuts on the barrels.  The older XL eyepieces did not.

[TheLookingGlass]

16 minutes ago, Don Pensack said:

Pentax XW eyepieces have undercuts on the barrels.  The older XL eyepieces did not.

The undercuts on the XW's are significantly thinner than most others and so far up on the barrels that I never found them to be a nuisance in compression rings. But then again, I used Antares twist lock adapters on the ones I had, which meant no undercut problem at all. 🥰

https://www.google.com/search?q=pentax+xw&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALiCzsbq-1WMEtKJS_zuUl3aJqsRadJ6vw:1662909467250&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjq6trAhI36AhVGpIkEHdtACysQ_AUoAnoECAIQBA&biw=1344&bih=689&dpr=1.25

No undercuts on the older Pentax XL's? I've never seen that before. 🤔

https://www.google.com/search?q=pentax+xl&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi1k-zBhI36AhW6sXIEHddpCdoQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=pentax+xl&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDoECCMQJzoFCAAQgAQ6BggAEB4QCFCtDFjTDWDeDmgAcAB4AIABd4gBwwKSAQMxLjKYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=HfwdY_WQJrrjytMP19Ol0A0&bih=689&biw=1344&client=firefox-b-d

[cajen2]

My Pentax XWs used to hang up all the time on the compression ring of my dob adaptor. I solved it with a Baader Clicklock. No more problem.

[IB20]

1 hour ago, Don Pensack said:

Pentax XW eyepieces have undercuts on the barrels.  The older XL eyepieces did not.

Sorry I’ll rephrase, no undercuts that snag all the time like their Televue counterparts.

[Stu]

I must be blessed in some way. The only time I’ve ever had problems with undercuts was with a 24mm Panoptic in a Tak prism. I popped a couple of wraps of insulating tape in the undercut and never had any further issues. The original tape is still there, never comes off, no problems really.

[Marvin Jenkins]

On 09/09/2022 at 14:36, Skipper Billy said:

As a retailer - I disagree!

One of the lines we sell is specialist paint - a 750ml can of a particular paint has gone up £1 per week every week for the last 8 weeks - from £18.50 to £26.50 a can. When we sell a can we have to replace it and effectively we would be retailing at less than the cost price to replace it !!! On top of that our payroll has gone up along with all our other costs and energy costs have gone through the roof. Whilst customers are squealing we are having are profit margins slashed to the bone.

Might have to sell a Tak or two. I am selling my house to down size. I think it is called adjustment, or is that recession?

[Louis D]

5 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

Pentax XW eyepieces have undercuts on the barrels.  The older XL eyepieces did not.

Here's some poor pictures of my various Pentax XF/XL/XW eyepieces.  All have undercuts:

[Don Pensack]

On 11/09/2022 at 08:21, TheLookingGlass said:

The undercuts on the XW's are significantly thinner than most others and so far up on the barrels that I never found them to be a nuisance in compression rings. But then again, I used Antares twist lock adapters on the ones I had, which meant no undercut problem at all. 🥰

https://www.google.com/search?q=pentax+xw&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALiCzsbq-1WMEtKJS_zuUl3aJqsRadJ6vw:1662909467250&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjq6trAhI36AhVGpIkEHdtACysQ_AUoAnoECAIQBA&biw=1344&bih=689&dpr=1.25

No undercuts on the older Pentax XL's? I've never seen that before. 🤔

https://www.google.com/search?q=pentax+xl&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi1k-zBhI36AhW6sXIEHddpCdoQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=pentax+xl&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDIECAAQGDoECCMQJzoFCAAQgAQ6BggAEB4QCFCtDFjTDWDeDmgAcAB4AIABd4gBwwKSAQMxLjKYAQCgAQGqAQtnd3Mtd2l6LWltZ8ABAQ&sclient=img&ei=HfwdY_WQJrrjytMP19Ol0A0&bih=689&biw=1344&client=firefox-b-d

Only the very last version of the XL had an undercut.

The set I had did not.

[Louis D]

I bought my XLs in 1998.  XWs didn't show up for another 5 years.  I guess the last XL version lasted quite a while.

[TheLookingGlass]

14 hours ago, Don Pensack said:

Only the very last version of the XL had an undercut.

The set I had did not.

Have any pics of those? 🤔

[Don Pensack]

5 hours ago, TheLookingGlass said:

Have any pics of those? 🤔

That was >20 years ago and over a hundred eyepieces.  Sorry, no.

I could be remembering wrong, too, since the groove on the barrel was so narrow and near the top of the barrel of the ones I sold several years later, they simply didn't interfere with insertion or removal.

But the ones I owned were the very first production ('90s), and I don't recall them having an undercut on the barrels.  If they did have the grooves, it was very different than current undercut grooves.