Coin Microscope That Also Takes Pictures? Under $500.00

Look here http://www.amscope.com/digital-microscopes.html
Keep it under 50x and down to as close to 5x as possible,IMHO.
John1

EDIT: Also check Dino-Lites http://www.dino-lite.com/ but don't buy them from the company they are cheaper on ebay or Amazon.

For the best "bang for your buck" I like optical stereo scopes, like the ones in the link above. The stereo scopes do not have a stage, rather a fixed bottom plate, one eyepiece removes for the camera (usually a low cost modified webcam) to take it's place while photographing. The stereo scopes are great for checking varieties and really easy on the eayes, way more so than a high power magnifier. I personally have a LW Scientific and love it. mine goes form 2.5x to 15x which is plenty of power, though I can't shoot the entire coin in most cases, under a cent sized possibly, but any larger coin - no way.

The more expensive scopes will gain you a tri-view port, one for the camera leaving both eyepieces in place while shooting pictures. Also your optical glass will generally be higher quality, and you will get wide field eyepieces, with large openings (again easier on your eyes) this lets you see larger areas, or field of views at all powers.

Stereo scopes will need some sort of external illumination for coins, you will not really use the underneath lighting as coins are opaque. A couple of Ikea Jansjo LED lamps would be great sources for external lighting and at under $10.00 each a great deal. I know the company listed above and they are fairly well known in the scientific industry and have a pretty good reputation. But I don't know much about the quality of the scopes on that page, as they don't list who makes them. The very best brands in microscopes are Lecia and Olympus (both very expensive) followed by several others like LW Scientific, Celestron, Edmunds, etc.

Depends on your method of use I suppose. If you are one that sits at a desk and looks at lots of coins for die cracks, varieties, etc. then a stereo scope is a very nice tool. I have all three, stereo scope, USB microscope, DSLR macro camera set-up. But then again I was a professional photographer for a long time, so the DSLR stuff I mostly had already. I bought the Stereo scope before cheap digital cameras and USB microscopes, the USB Scope I have was a freebie demo from Celestron when I sold there products. I like and use all three of them regularly, as they each have benefits.