Can Anyone Recommend A Good Visor?

I bought a plastic one on ebay last year, I think for about $14. It's got a fixed pair of lenses for low power, and another set that flips down from inside for high power, plus a third lens for the left or right eye, that rotates into position if you need it. Sorry, I haven't a clue what X any of those are.

I'm sure you get what you pay for but this one seems to be fine. The plastic optics are clear and not distorted. The forehead part of the headband is slightly padded so it's comfortable to wear for extended sessions.

I get some weird looks when I put it on at coin shows, but hey my eyesight isn't what it used to be. If you sift through gallon jugs of pennies or trays full of Morgans looking for VAMs, you gotta have something like this.

sel_691, do you prefer any certain brands or features ?

this is the one that I use;



http://www.harborfreight.com/head-s...t-95890.html

It is very versatile, with different magnification levels, and the light is useful on occasion.

You can use them in combination, the visor has two slots! I use the 2.5x for most jobs, but if you stick the 3.5x in front of it, it gets pretty big.

When I am gem cutting, about 15x magnification suits me. I have cut a round brilliant yellow sapphire 1.5 mm diameter with the standard 57 facets on it! 20x is needed my me for this.

The normal magnification for coin examination is best at around 10X. For coins, just try a magnifying visor on, and examine a coin from your pocket with it. That is the best way of deciding on a visor to suit your own needs.

For coin shows, I find a 10x jewelers' loupe better, because you can carry that in your pocket.

Scooby Due: Not much recommending a lapidary supplier to you because my supplier is on the other side of the Planet, in the city where I live (Sydney). Check the Net out for suppliers near you. Like the numismatic market, the lapidary market is much bigger in the U.S., so you shouldn't have too much of a problem locating a supplier.

Scooby Due and any body else interested:

My favourite gem rough to cut is yellow sapphire. The biggest source by volume of production of sapphire in the World are the Anakie fields of Central Queensland. Most of the material from here is of the very dark blue or nearly black variety, and I am NOT a fan of this stuff. It is too dark for my liking to get good scintillation like a diamond. Most of this material is cut in small workshops in Thailand.

That is why I always go for the yellow material. It is also much easier to look into the rough stone with a 20X loupe, to find unwanted flaws and to decide how you are going to yield as much good stone as possible. Having decided this, the type of cut is more or less decided for you.

Fake and synthetic gems are more commonly found than with fake coins. A whole science of Gemnology has developed to identify fakes and assess genuine stones for their comparative quality. My father did a 4 year course in this field.

So far as obtaining good rough material in the U.S. is concerned, there a number of highly reputable dealers in America. I have dealt with LOCHS some years ago. At that time, I was after some scarce synthetic material. I wanted some pale green Cubic Zirconia. Some of us may know that CZ is a very good diamond simulant, however, diamond does NOT occur in a pale emerald green hue!

CZ is only la little less hard than sapphire it has very high refractive index so it sparkles like a diamond, and it has a higher angle of dispersion than diamond (the ability to split up a ray of light into it's component colours), but NO diamond is of a pale emerald green colour. The nearest equivalent would be the famous Dresden Green diamond. (You may wish to Google that). With an emerald green diamond simulant, I am fooling no one.

The easiest way to differentiate CZ from diamond is with thermal and electrical conductivity tests. Diamonds are conductors and CZ is an insulator.

I have also bought some emerald green synthetic sapphire rough from LOCHS. Emerald green sapphire NEVER occurs naturally. Synthetic sapphire is excellent for jewelry because it is resistant to scratching and being flawless, is more resistant to shattering from shock impact.

The biggest gem and mineral show in the World is in Tucson AZ. The event extends over several days, and I have a friend / dealer who has attended for the last 10 years. He is the guy who gets my yellow sapphire rough stone from Anakie for me.

You may wish to Google Map Anakie in Central Queensland.