Microscope And Software... New Member

Hi Brad...the ebay Microscopes work OK,I've had mine for over 2 years and so far no trouble and these days are had for under $50.I will post some links whern I get home later in the week.

Happy New Year all ...

Brad, Everything you need will be found here.! There will be some , followed by a bit of , but in the end a whole bunch of .

i have a traveller brand, the only time you need to change focus is when you change the power settings, 10x, 60x and 200x, taking pics is just a click of a button on the microscope or by mouse clicking. bit of a resource hog if you leave it open and running for a long time though.

Thanks eccentric. I am also looking for a software like this. I had tried a few but not happy with them. So I was planning to write one by myself (I am a programmer so it cost me nothing :-) ) Since I saw your post, I will try this one first.

The gemstone database I use (from the same seller) has the capacity to record three photos of each stone. The database images are simply linked to the image files on the computer, so it doesn't matter how you take the photo as long as the link stays viable. The recommendation is to establish a dedicated folder for all database images - that way they don't get 'lost'. You will need a camera or a microscope linked to the computer to take the photos in the first place. Which you use will, I guess, depend on cost or convenience and your own preference. The other option is simply to scan coins, although in my experience the picture quality does suffer.

Having sorted through 100kg of pennies and halfpennies myself, please let me assure you that you don't need a microscope for that. It would take more than a lifetime to look at every coin under a microscope, if you are sorting through you generally tend to look at general condition and then look at the nicer coins later under a loupe or similar if required. For example if you have 100 1912 pennies from a random sample, 95 of them will be VF or worse, maybe 5 may be VF or better and you might get one in aUNC or better if you are lucky, anything less than aUNC or better I can't see the point in looking at the coin under a microscope as you can grade the coin just as well with the naked eye.

Back to your question, I use a dinolite microscope, cost around $250-300 from memory but is quite useful to photograph coins if you are selling them on ebay or to have a closer look at any higher grade / valuable coins you may have.