What Magnifier Do You Recommend For Me?

Digital microscopes are OK
but there are much cheaper ways to look at your coins in minor detail.
It is ideal if you can have both hands free, when examining your coins in very close detail.

I use 4x reading glasses, that have no spherical or color aberration. They are so powerful that I cannot use them beyond a range of about 5 feet. The lenses are only about 20mm height, so I look over the tops of the rims unassisted, when I need to see at normal distances.
They cost me $5 complete with case, from a cut price 2nds store.


I must explain:
As we age, our eyes are not able to focus at shorter distances, the deterioration gets more noticeable after about 40 years old.

Fortunately for some of us, our eyes decline in the ability to focus at short distances at a matched rate. This good fortune allows very cheap, very high magnification reading glasses to be worn, where the optical prescription for both lenses is exactly the same.
Note:
NEVER use the glasses as I have suggested above, if you normally wear prescription glasses where the lens prescription is different for each eye.


For very close work, I use a 1 inch diameter cloth examination lens that has 3 glass elements in two groups. With the magnification that this little device provides, I can examine coins that are as little at one inch away from my eye. It was originally used for examining the quality of the the warp and weft of woven cloth fabrics.

I have a cheap 2x magnifying glass that I use some. But, that probably isn't going to give you the "detail" that you want. Then I have a 10x loop (some of you may remember this loop from the little trip it took with the TSA over the summer). This would probably give you the detail you desire, but I find the small field of view to be a little difficult from time to time. For my birthday I just received a nice aspheric 5x magnifying lens. You can find something like that on magnifier.com at a pretty reasonable price.

How does this one by TEKCOPLUS seem for what I'm looking for?

https://smile.amazon.com/Focused-Je...4420&sr=8-12

The x is for "times" or the "multiplication" of the magnification. Those aspheric lens on magnifier.com might be the size your looking for. They are bigger than a loop. Maybe 2 inches in diameter.

It sounds like you are doing your homework and shopping around. So, I think you'll be Happy in the end.

I've used a 7X Hastings Triplet for everyday work for 30 years, and always carry a similar 10X for close-ups. If I can't get the drift with those, I'm not a buyer!

I've been through a lot of magnifiers in my 30+ years collecting but I always come back to the best - Bausch & Lomb 7x APO Triplet. I have two, they are my main goto loupe for everything coin related. They aren't the cheapest at $40.00 or so, but absolutely no color fringing and they come in several powers, I like the 7X for most of what I look at, small RPDs and die cracks on my Two Cent Pieces.