New Member with Questions (1 Viewer)

Hi all, I'm Terry Price, living in North Carolina, USA.
I'm 81 years old, still run an antiques business part time and still love finding treasures. I was born in Portsmouth UK, raised in Canada, have had multiple careers. Now I mostly watch birds on feeders, still enjoy using good binoculars. For watching the feeders I use a very old pair of West German made 8x Orvis Binoculars. I've had them forever.
I recently did find a treasure at an antiques store here. The owner sold me a pair of binoculars for $35 because he had never heard of the make, Rakia. Printed in gold on a perfect case was the Name "RAKIA, Dec 24, 1959"
Inside the case was a pair of never used, absolutely perfect, Leitz Amplivid 6x24 binoculars. Even the neck strap is perfect. Not sure if I should keep these or sell them and get more modern ones. They seem great to use. I'm not sure if they are worth much or where to sell them. I saw a pair on ebay for $299 but they were really beat up so I'm guessing they might be valuable. Any information or help would be appreciated.
Terry

Hi ya Terry and a warm welcome from those of us on staff here at BirdForum.

I've moved your thread to the Binocular section of the Forum and have subscribed you to it so you will be notified by email of any suggestions posted Enjoy yourself here and please join in wherever you like

Terry1207 said:

Hi all, I'm Terry Price, living in North Carolina, USA.
I'm 81 years old, still run an antiques business part time and still love finding treasures. I was born in Portsmouth UK, raised in Canada, have had multiple careers. Now I mostly watch birds on feeders, still enjoy using good binoculars. For watching the feeders I use a very old pair of West German made 8x Orvis Binoculars. I've had them forever.
I recently did find a treasure at an antiques store here. The owner sold me a pair of binoculars for $35 because he had never heard of the make, Rakia. Printed in gold on a perfect case was the Name "RAKIA, Dec 24, 1959"
Inside the case was a pair of never used, absolutely perfect, Leitz Amplivid 6x24 binoculars. Even the neck strap is perfect. Not sure if I should keep these or sell them and get more modern ones. They seem great to use. I'm not sure if they are worth much or where to sell them. I saw a pair on ebay for $299 but they were really beat up so I'm guessing they might be valuable. Any information or help would be appreciated.
Terry

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Hi, Terry and welcome:

Considering the binocular was a Leitz (now Leica) and Rakia is the name of a person or an alcoholic drink from Bulgaria, coupled with the date of Christmas Eve, I would say that it was a Christmas present for someone named Rakia in 1959. If the binocular is in good condition and collimated, you made an excellent find. :cat:

Bill

:hi:Nice find Terry!

Here is some information about it. Leitz made it from 1956-1962. It will have value to collectors of old Leitz binoculars.

https://www.allbinos.com/1632-Leitz_Amplivid_6x24-binoculars_specifications.html

As for your Orvis binocular. Orvis was still advertising those little 8x binoculars in their catalog into the 1970s. I was tempted to buy one but I never did. They even showed them being used on African Safaris. I never handled one but they looked like reverse Porro prisms.

Bob

Hi and welcome to the forum. For the type of bird viewing you describe, these binoculars sound like a match made in heaven!
P.S. I would suggest swapping the leather neck strap for a newer nylon web variety (retain the old one, of course) b/c older leather can sometimes break without much warning.

Hi Terry,
I have a 6x24 Amplivid and it is excellent, although low transmission as it uses mirrors with the prisms.

If yours is in good collimation I would think it is worth £500, possibly more if really as new.

These binoculars are difficult to repair and should not be subjected to heavy knocks or heavy use.

Hi Terry,

first of all, welcome to birdforum!

Congratulations to your find, a Leitz Amplivid is a very different design with a huge field of view as a main selling point and was built only in low numbers due to difficulties getting the design to work right. It thus is now highly collectible.

The sale price of $500 mentioned is in my opinion only a lower limit for a perfect example - the finished sales search on ebay shows only two examples, one with box & original bag but technical problems offered for 550€ but sold at a lower and undisclosed price and a good used example sold for $499 plus $99 for shipping (my opinion on the shipping price had to be censored).

I would not use this pair for regular birdwatching as selling it and buying a modern pair from the proceeds is going to give more enjoyment to the birdwatcher as opposed to the optics collector.
Transmission is quite low due to the use of mirrors instead of prisms, the eye relief is 11mm or so, making it quite unusable with glasses and as has been mentioned, it is easy to knock it out of alignment and will be hard to repair. The field of view will be second to none, of course.

Joachim, who owns a not quite as rare ultra wide angle KOMZ 6x24 and sometimes even uses it, although not really in the field.

Bob, post 4,
On the WEBsite of House of Outdoor you can find test results from binoculars with large FOV and among them the Leitz Amplivid 6x24, the Leitz Trinovid 6x24 and the Komz 6x24 and some other ones. It is a recent report. We have also measured transmission spectra of these binoculars, fun to see the differences,
Gijs van Ginkel

Gijs van Ginkel said:

Bob, post 4,
On the WEBsite of House of Outdoor you can find test results from binoculars with large FOV and among them the Leitz Amplivid 6x24, the Leitz Trinovid 6x24 and the Komz 6x24 and some other ones. It is a recent report. We have also measured transmission spectra of these binoculars, fun to see the differences,
Gijs van Ginkel

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Thank you for that information, Gijs.

Do you know anything about what German Company might have made that little 8x reverse Porro (If my memory is correct it was a reverse Porro.) that was sold by the Orvis Company in the USA?

Bob

Gijs van Ginkel said:

Bob, post 4,
On the WEBsite of House of Outdoor you can find test results from binoculars with large FOV and among them the Leitz Amplivid 6x24, the Leitz Trinovid 6x24 and the Komz 6x24 and some other ones. It is a recent report. We have also measured transmission spectra of these binoculars, fun to see the differences,
Gijs van Ginkel

Click to expand...

Thanks for the pointer, Gijs!

Joachim