Resurrecting another old thread ...
I can no longer see the original auction listing linked above, but have just bought a 'Vickers Adlerblick 10x42', for £42, as opposed to the £140 quoted there.
They are really good at the lower price, but the higher price gets you into Zeiss (even Oberkochen) territory, where these will not quite compete.
The button at the far end of the axle has "
Made in Japan MB" and "
Nr. 75966". No remaining JTII sticker or JB/JE codes.
Winkel is German for 'angle', so would be correct if the FOV were not wide. "
Nr." is the correct abbreviation in German, too. English would be "
No.", since we still speak Latin?
They give the impression of being well designed, from scratch, rather than a copy, clone or re-badge.
The bridge arms have a hollow cross-section, with tailored tapered wall thickness. Where paint has worn off, a nice grey anodisation is revealed. Coatings are a mix of none/brown/deep-blue (UV?) on lenses and light blue (single?) on prisms. Only one side has an apparently uncoated surface, so that may have been cleaned off?
Unusually, the last eyepiece surface seems concave.
There is slight play (see-saw) in the focuser, but not enough to make me investigate tightening things.
Prisms are high-index, and stray light is pretty low. View is good: sharp and contrasty. At the edge 15% of the 65° field, some secondary purple-green chromatic and pincushion are visible with high contrast (aerial/antenna/branches against sky), but not intrusive.
I am glad I did not let the above put me off purchasing.
I associate Vickers with microscopes, but these bins have a Swallow graphic logo.
Update: The microscopes were branded "Vickers Instruments" with a VI monogram logo. So unrelated, as are VC10 etc.
Jring above says
"Adlerblick (freely translated eagle-eye) is a trademark of ES-DE Optik of Stuttgart Germany."
Co-incidentally, I just bought a pair of ESDE 7x50 "Weit Winkel" (2 words) 163m. Pupils truncated on inner sides, and lots of stray light and false pupils. Not good, despite large prism housings. JTII sticker and cross-hair button on near hinge end. JB46 visible on prism shelf through objectives.
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They made me wonder if Japan put German markings on poor products, but the Vickers Adlerblick restored my faith ...
Is Vickers a brand in Germany, or did Japan add German markings for British importers? Odd.