Grader's Assistant

Ripken

Regarding magnifiers which I believe we discussed here a few weeks ago......

I looked high & low without much success but just received & began using a table lamp/magnifier that I like quite a bit. I bought it on EBay from the seller "bndkoay". Cost was about $129 plus shipping of $20+. It's a heavy lamp 5x magnifier that can sit right on your table or large desk. It has a swing arm and the feature I like best is that it's viewing area is around 7"...larger than the cards you look at. That means you can use both hands to turn the card for examination while you look under the glass. The lighting is flourescent, which I'm a big believer in. It doesn't correct for curveture, which kind of distorts the shape of the card at certain angles, but that doesn't bother me.

I know most of you like 10x loupes ..the hand held variety..and they are powerful. But the ease and time-saving of using something like this makes pre-grading a much nicer experience....to say nothing of the 'eyestrain effect'. I just used it and hopefully eliminated some cards I wouldn't have caught otherwise.

If anyone has other lamps similar to this, but maybe even better, let's spread the knowledge. I'm pretty excited about this but when my wife tries to pick it up and move it she may not have the same reaction.

Spahnfan

I have a similar magnifier lamp I use. I added a feature of my own. I took a hand held magnifying glass and taped it to the lens in the lamp. You can use a rectangular one or a round one, depending on how you like the focus. It works great. It seems to triple the magnification of the lighted lamp lens. I have also used a hand held 10X loop with the magnifier lamp. That works also, but you do not have both hands free.

I think I tried all three lenses together once. I think that gave the same magnification of a microscope and I could see the chemical composition of the cardboard. I thought that was maybe overkill, so I don't use that any more. Come to think of it, I could use it if I buy cards from someone in person. I could show them that their card has some broken cells in some of the fibers at the corners and therefore cannot possibly be mint.

(In case you are not sure, my first paragraph is true. The second one is a little tongue-in-cheek.)

mcastaldi

*shrugs* maybe I'm cheap. . .I use a $30 halogen desk lamp purchased at Ikea. . .and a $10 14x duplex loupe found on eBay.

Mike

MorrellMan

Ripken - I use one of those also; I recently had to turn the light OFF in order to see a very slight surface wrinkle on the back of a '48 Swell card I was whining about on the board earlier this week. From now on, I'll use that magnifier with AND without the light.

HCS

We need either a new definition for Gem Mint or a higher grade for perfection at the fiber level!