Hertel & Reuss??????? (1 Viewer)

[ewsjr]

Can anyone tell me much about Hertel & Reuss binoculars. I found a pair at an antiques store and bought them on impulse. Mine are 6X30's and remarkably clear. They came with a case where you put them in sideways and they fit quite securely in that case. I am always a bit reluctant to tell my wife about some of my crazier impulse items. She looked at them and proclaimed them the first binocular she could 'just look through and see things easily' so she wasn't terribly critical about my purchase. Any comments as to quality of Hertel & reuss binos or any other information you may share would be appreciated. These are a novelty item not likely to get a lot of field use for us and it has been suggested that I sell them to recover my money. Knowing so little about them makes it hard to set a fair price. Thank you in advance.

 

[Frederik S]

Hi, I can`t tell you much about Hertel & Reuss, there is something on the German Wikipedia site: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertel_&_Reuss
According to this Hertel & Reuss was a German company based in Kassel, which produced different optical instruments (microscopes, telescopics sights, binoculars). Hertel & Reuss existed from 1927 to 1995, when it finally became insolvent and was incorporated into another company.
A friend of mine owns a reverse Porro from Hertel & Reuss, i think it is a 8x28. It is a very (!) small and light binocular, and when I looked through it I was absolutely surprised about the nice and sharp image. My friend said, it was one of the best compact binoculars at the time he bought it ... So, I would keep such a binocular ...

Best regards, Frederik

 

[ewsjr]

Frederik, thank you. It is nice to confirm they could make a good bino. The 6x30's are quite good but not going to be used as much as I thought in the half minute I thought before buying.

 

[Kevin Purcell]

ewsjr (Greetings, fellow Puget Sounder)

You might be surprised with how useful a 6x30 can be for birding. Take a look at the praise heaped on the Leupold Yosemite here. Should have a decent field of view and the low mag reduces the shakes and the resulting 5mm (30/6) exit pupil should make it an "relaxed" view (not critical in placement to the eye).

Any chance of a photo of your prize catch? We promise we won't tell your wife

 

[RecoveringScot]

Hertel & Reuss also produced a drawtube telescope in the 1970s, the 'Televari', which I think was 20 X 60 X 60. It was rather similar to the 'Nickel Supra' but had a superior focussing mechanism. A friend of mine had one (I had the Nickel). I don't know how well the optics would compare to todays examples.

Cheers,

 

[ewsjr]

Kevin, I shall try to get a picture or two of the Hertel & Reuss over the weekend. My wife really does like these but they're just not getting used so I will probably put them on fleabay soon. The Yosemite 6X30 is on my wish list and I will soon get one. It has the advantage of being waterproof and being easily replaceable should it be lost or stolen from the car. I am in the process of upgrading optics accross the board. I've replaced two binos so far at almost no net cost and find the improvements of newer technology to be significant. There really are some great binos on the market today and some come at relatively low cost. My fund of mad money is growing slowly but eventually an 8X42 Leica will be purchased and, I promise, I will quit buying optics.

 

[FrankD]

My fund of mad money is growing slowly but eventually an 8X42 Leica will be purchased and, I promise, I will quit buying optics.

Yeah, there are a bunch of us that said the same thing ten or twenty binocular purchases ago.....

 

[Alexis Powell]

I have an old Hertel & Reuss that was passed down to me. It fits sideways into its leather case as mentioned for the 6x30 above. It is a 7x35 and marked with the company mark/logo, "Made in Germany", "Coated Optics" and the designation "Featherweight" (and it is very lightweight, probably under 20 oz) which might be its model name. It dates back at least to the 1960s. The view is narrow for a 7x, maybe about 7 degrees, and the optical design seems exceedingly simple, but the view is very high quality--very neutral color and a big sweet spot that includes almost the entire field. As I recall, however, it has a problem with flare when subjected to strong off-axis light, as from the sun. If I unscrew the hard plastic eyecups I can see the full FOV while wearing glasses. Unfortunately, it is not a very good birding binocular because the focus is slow and the close focus distance is about 25 feet.

--AP

 

[ksbird/foxranch]

Over the past 20 years I have collected about 10 pairs of Hertel and Reuss binoculars. The most common being the 8x30, along with 6x30, 6x18 (Peers), 8x25 (Peers), 7x35 and 8x40. Either Zeiss or Leica acquired H&R when they stopped being competitive just to give "the big guy" more factory floor space to make more stuff. Some of the H&R bins like the Peer series were for pockets and very nice. The standard bins from H&R were always top notch. If you get uncoated units then they aren't very good.

H&R often made bins for other people to brand (like Weatherby), they also made rifle scopes of very high quality. I keep using H&R bins when we all gather together to see what we can see with the "oldies". It is kind of sad that Spindler & Hoyer, Dr. Wohler, Hertel and Reuss, Heine, and other Kassel makers couldn't compete with Zeiss and Leica because it is usually better for an industry to have a variety of competitors who all try to come up with "better ideas" to keep their market share. There are so many others in the German optics biz that I couldn't list them all in one post (like Ecker Lucerne, Weitwinkel [acquired by Zeiss], Goerz, Nitschke & Rathenow and Hensoldt [acquired by Zeiss]), but I'm glad Lisenfeld, Kahles, Steiner, Docter, Eschenbach, Schmidt & Bender and some other optics companies are still out there.

Often the people who look through my collection of fully coated German binoculars marvel at how finely polished the lenses are. This gave these bins a clarity that was usually unsurpassed. They usually needed cleaning quite often because they weren't fully sealed, but most still work great today.

 

[FrankD]

but I'm glad Lisenfeld, Kahles, Steiner, Docter, Eschenbach, Schmidt & Bender and some other optics companies are still out there.

Paul,

There were some rumors (pretty substantial) over on 24hourcampfire that Kahles was, for lack of a better term, going out of business. Just as an FYI.