Where do old eyepieces go?

[Mr Spock]

I've been pondering this for a while. Where do they go? A cupboard, bin, retirement home? 

For example, where are all the TV Radians? They were very popular, and very good eyepieces. You don't see many still using them and you don't see any for sale. So where are they?

I still see Circle-T orthos for sale - you can almost pick up a full set. For vixen very few LVs, no LVWs (people like me aren't going to sell, ever!); just seen a couple of HRs and that's rare.

[Ags]

The Eyepiece Monster gobbles them up.

[John]

If I don't see things coming up for sale often, I usually take that as a sign that they are well liked by their owners 🙂

That said, I've sold a few eyepieces recently that were going to be "lifetimers".

I seem to prefer lighter and more compact eyepieces of late 

 

 

[Mircea]

I have three Radians, 6mm -5mm- 3mm. I use them mainly at double stars and clusters. I don't have any intention to part with them, they provide orthoscopic image in a 60 degree field. A (nearly) happy man here.

Why only nearly happy ? Because since nearly a year and half I'm looking for a 4mm I can reach but no chance yet.

Mircea

[John]

I had the 4mm and 3mm Radians for a while and enjoyed them. The "instajust" feature takes some getting used to though but it can be adjusted to make it more friendly.

 

[Saganite]

I still have a 5mm Radian ....

[lguise]

I gather TeleVue Radians are very popular in Poland!
I sold several to a lady over there and observers in her Society were very keen for them.

Linton

[MalcolmP]

The most loved ones have been transported into the heavens by the gods (as was the Hair of Queen Berenice)
We call them gravitational lenses  
 

Edited July 28 by MalcolmP

[IB20]

I see a lot of first upgrade EPs (BSTs, SLVs etc) for sale but not too many high end. See the odd TV plössl or ethos.

Rarely see any of the classic older lines and can only assume they are held by collectors or people who really like them.  

I’ve seen a fair few Vixen HRs but they go quick! 

[markse68]

I think @Louis D has got most of them

Edited July 28 by markse68

[Gonariu]

I am not very picky about eyepieces, I have a certain number supplied with the optics I bought that have sufficient performance. I also have some good ones bought in the last 25 years or new (Vixen OR 12.5 mm, Unitron OR 5 mm, Celestron OR 6 mm, Vixen LV 4 mm) or used (Vixen zoom 8-24, Celestron Xcell 2.3 mm). Since I mainly look at the Moon, Sun and planets, orthoscopics are excellent eyepieces. I am missing one that gives a large field at low magnification, I will see what I can get. In any case, I always have good and sufficient ones available, for me nothing is thrown away.

[Les Ewan]

I grew up in the era of 0.96" Huyghens that came with cheap Japanese 60mm refractors of the early 70's. At that time upgrading to 0.96" Kellners for these instruments was a wonderful thing.

After getting my first descent scope in form of a 150mm f8 Newtonian in 1978 it came with a 1.25" 20mm Kellner which I still use as it gives exquisite low power views of planets. The same year I added 12.5mm and 9mm Orthoscopics to my collection which I bought from a company called Edinburgh Cameras that existed at the time. In the late 70's I didn't know Plossls even existed (I cant remember them being advertised).

The 12.5mm Orthoscopic  is another nice eyepiece I use a lot,the eye relief on the 9mm is a bit narrow but can give good views when seeing is good.

 

[Louis D]

9 hours ago, markse68 said:

I think @Louis D has got most of them

I'm hardly alone, especially in the US.  My collection pales in comparison to folks having complete double sets of ZAOs, I and II, Nikon Orthos, AP SPLs, TMB Super Monocentrics, Zeiss Monocentrics, Takahashi 90° UWs, etc.  Like me, they like to compare and contrast top of the line eyepieces no matter the era.

As collections go, eyepieces are pretty cheap, so collectors don't see much of a need to sell them to purchase more.  Compare the cost of collecting eyepieces to the cost of collecting vintage cars at $90,000+ apiece at auction.  There's a lot of discretionary money being tossed around in the US and abroad.

Most collectable eyepieces that do come up for sale are a result of estate sales or declining health.  If they don't get sold by someone knowledgeable (usually a friend of the family helping out) on some dedicated astro classifieds group, we never hear about them unless we troll general auction sites.

[Gonariu]

11 hours ago, Les Ewan said:

After getting my first descent scope in form of a 150mm f8 Newtonian in 1978 it came with a 1.25" 20mm Kellner which I still use as it gives exquisite low power views of planets. The same year I added 12.5mm and 9mm Orthoscopics to my collection which I bought from a company called Edinburgh Cameras that existed at the time. In the late 70's I didn't know Plossls even existed (I cant remember them being advertised).

The 12.5mm Orthoscopic  is another nice eyepiece I use a lot,the eye relief on the 9mm is a bit narrow but can give good views when seeing is good.

 

I read a few years ago that the best eyepieces for planetariums still today are orthoscopic and Kellner, the reason is that they have a small number of lenses.

[Carbon Brush]

As we amass scopes & mounts, they become problematic. Where do you put them all? If you have 'last years model' it gets sold before devaluing too much.
Hence unused scopes get sold on.

Eyepieces take up little space and apart from the occasional check for fungus and the like, do not need looking after.
They tend to have few design/feature changes with time - compared to scopes and mounts.
If you decide to sell, how much are they worth? OK some are pocket money, some rather more expensive.
But unless you are fundraising there is little incentive.
Then you can easily hang on to eyepieces to try on your next scope.

Going against the above (to some extent) is imaging.
Fewer people take an eye to a scope these days and instead use cameras.
So why not sell the unused eyepeices?

[Stu]

I’m selling a few at the moment for purely financial reasons, I’ve got a couple of hefty bills coming up and Mrs Stu is currently out of a job so things are tight. Eyepieces come and go for me, at one stage I had a lovely set of Ethos, Delos, Radians and XWs but they all went when I needed the cash. I managed very well with a Nag zoom, Leica zoom and 24mm Panoptic plus a set of BGOs for a while, then built back up again.

The HR planetaries are lovely eyepieces, and undoubtedly top notch in terms of quality. I thought they would be ‘for life’ but given their value and how often I get to use them, plus the fact I have Nag Zooms which are not too far behind them, needs must and they have moved on.

I try to hang on to scopes that would be very difficult to replace such as the FS-128, Vixen FL-102S and Genesis as they are all excellent examples and come up for sale rarely. Eyepieces you can usually manage until your desired one comes up used even though it may take a while.

To more directly answer the OPs question….

I still have my full set of BGOs as they are not worth that much in the grand scheme of things, and would keep me going if I had to sell more of my others. They are excellent optically and I don’t mind the short eye relief, particularly on a driven mount. The 24mm Panoptic and 3 to 6 Nag and Leica zooms would be amongst the last to go just because they are so useable and high quality, and the 2 to 4 I’ll hang onto as they are very hard to come by now.

The 21mm Ethos is up for sale currently for no other reason that it is a chunk of cash in one go and I can manage with the 31mm Nag and 24mm Panoptic. They do seem to come up for sale every now and then so it can be replaced, but if it doesn’t sell, or I can get by without selling then all the better.

I guess the Radians are being held onto because they are hard to find/replace, and possibly also because they unfairly got a bad reputation for the colour caste so perhaps don’t realise as high a value as they should. People who own them know how good they are and hang onto them.

[markse68]

8 hours ago, Louis D said:

I'm hardly alone, especially in the US.  My collection pales in comparison to folks having complete double sets of ZAOs, I and II, Nikon Orthos, AP SPLs, TMB Super Monocentrics, Zeiss Monocentrics, Takahashi 90° UWs, etc.  Like me, they like to compare and contrast top of the line eyepieces no matter the era.

As collections go, eyepieces are pretty cheap, so collectors don't see much of a need to sell them to purchase more.  Compare the cost of collecting eyepieces to the cost of collecting vintage cars at $90,000+ apiece at auction.  There's a lot of discretionary money being tossed around in the US and abroad.

Most collectable eyepieces that do come up for sale are a result of estate sales or declining health.  If they don't get sold by someone knowledgeable (usually a friend of the family helping out) on some dedicated astro classifieds group, we never hear about them unless we troll general auction sites.

Sorry Louis- couldn’t resist  Very hypocritical of me too as i have way too many eps but like others say, they don’t cost so much, are easy to store and older non-current  models from the heyday of visual are increasingly rare so more likely to be held onto- especially as many of us suffer from collectionitis and seek complete sets, even if they’re rarely used. The service you have provided over the years with all your comparisons has amazing value to us all! Thank you!

It is odd about certain models though like the radians- when i started they were abundant in the classies 🤔

Edited July 29 by markse68

[dweller25]

I have been trying to find a pair of Vixen 12mm LV’s for years………

 

 

[Louis D]

4 hours ago, Stu said:

I guess the Radians are being held onto because they are hard to find/replace, and possibly also because they unfairly got a bad reputation for the colour caste so perhaps don’t realise as high a value as they should. People who own them know how good they are and hang onto them.

I tried out the Radians in a store during the daytime when they came out in 1998.  I was immediately struck by the strong SAEP that I found insufferable.  Side-by-side against the Pentax XLs, the latter had no SAEP, so I went with the XLs instead.  Back then, I had no trouble accommodating the field curvature in some of the XLs.  I've since changed out the 14mm XL for a 14mm Morpheus.  I still use the 5.2mm XL a lot.  I also looked at the Vixen LVWs, but found them to be a bit short on eye relief with eyeglasses compared to the XLs.

[Emperor!Takahashi!]

I think they all go to CloudyNights. It's basically Vegas for used eyepieces.

Edited July 29 by Emperor!Takahashi!

[John]

Interesting timing (not my advert !):

U.K. Astronomy Buy & Sell (astrobuysell.com)