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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alexis Powell" data-source="post: 3164811" data-attributes="member: 5327">Except in the really really big cities (New York, London...), and before Cabela's opened up some stores in smaller cities in the USA, I never experienced an optics store that carried high-end sports optics. Oh, I guess there was one store in Kansas City, MO that had some Leica bins, but the prices were almost double the going rate elsewhere (the store apparently catered to rich people for whom price was of no concern). Cameras and camera lenses were another matter, and were much more widely available (no longer the case, as most camera stores have folded, and big-box stores like Best Buy only carry cameras with built-in or kit lenses, no accessories, lighting equipment, or other lenses). The only way to obtain high-end optics was to place a special order through a camera store that carried cameras of the same brand, or to order it by mail from a catalog. So nearly all of my optics purchased over the past 30 years have come from B+H Photo, Adorama, Cabela's and Eagle Optics via their catalogs or their price listings in the back of Modern Photography and later Popular Photography. Nowadays all these places allow orders to be placed on-line but I still place all orders by phone because it is quicker for me and I think more reliable and maybe faster to ship (they check stock and put the order in while I'm on the line, the wireless phone line that is!).--AP</blockquote>