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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ksbird/foxranch" data-source="post: 1486656" data-attributes="member: 37413">I guess my original question about binocular makers producing high end models in quantities that are ultra-limited brings up many more issues. I imagine that if Nikon produced perhaps 8400 (a reasonable number, but chosen to be easy for later math purposes) of the 10x42 SE bins, and has been selling them since 1997 we have perhaps sales of only 700 pairs of these bins WORLD-WIDE PER YEAR. That's about one pair per 10,000,000 people. This is a really tiny number. Of course Nikon also makes the 8x32 and 12x, and LX roofer models. But the sales of those models must be low also, so there are certainly no more than one pair of these combined models sold world-wide at a rate of about one pair of all of these high end Nikon bins per million people in the population.An acquaintance at Cabellas says the factory staff for Swaro claim they don't make 2000 pairs of all of their high-est end bins in a year combined (their biggest business is Swarovski Crystal and specialty glass products). Leica might make quite a few pairs of Ultravids, and Zeiss or Fujinon might make the most of any of the ultra-top bins (especially since they produce bins for the military with "cost is no object"). But the number of the highest of the high end of binoculars is really almost trivial.Nikon sells more Monarchs in a year than all their high end bin sales for the past 12 years combined (in fact the Prostar is probably a bigger seller than any of the SEs or LXs or Premiers). Leica doesn't really even make a mid-price product line like Nikon, Zeiss and Fujinon. It is difficult to imagine how any of these companies can keep even one assembly line going (with its cadre of super-well-trained line technicians needed to assemble uber-bins), unless these assembly lines make super military bins too (Fujinon sells to so many Japanese government agencies, and foreign country armies, so their business is surprisingly large at the high end). Swaro makes bins for Austria, Meopta makes for the Czechs. Zeiss makes for the Bundeswehr. Leica/Kern makes for the Swiss army and CD even today. Obviously the Russians still make nice stuff for their army and then sell some of it for civilian use, as do the Bulgarians and Romanians. Now the Chinese military is demanding top quality as well, so perhaps soon we'll see the results of this increase in scale and technology.But generally the civilian markets for high end birding bins is so tiny it is amazing that the large companies bother making them at all (I wonder if Swift sells 500 pairs of the 8.5x ED bins world-wide per year). I'm also surprised that a much higher percentage of people who are in the KC Astronomical Society have super-top-end bins (probably 20% of 400 members) compared to the local Audubon Society bird-counter people. There are actual national awards for locating 110 Messier objects if you belong to KCAS so that could be the motivation. Obviously, as a binocular collector, I could have a number of top end bins. But it would seem reasonable that since a pair of US$1000 binoculars is less than a plasma TV in cost, and most cars sell for $25,000 or more, the cost of the best binoculars isn't unreasonable.I imagine that many people are only interested in "good-enough" for their bins. On the other hand the cost of a really good pair of bins is going to be $400-$500 anyway, so why not pop for the best. In fact I still marvel that the Steiner 10x50 IF Military or 9x Nighthunter are so good and yet can be had for $300-$500 pr, so why don't people buy more great bins? The list of super-bins probably only includes 20 models or so. There is allot of talk about the newest Chinese ED roofers and a few others, but they might be better considered as half a step down from the best but at half the cost. It is also surprising that Cabellas sells 95% of their ultra top Swaro, Zeiss, Bushnell Elites etc. to hunters because bins are really a small cost compared to the total for all hunting outfitting costs. I'm also hearing that many of the best waterproof models go to boaters who buy ultra expensive boats that sleep 6-8 people. Cabellas sells a surprising number of those boats as well.The people at the new Bass Pro mega store in Kansas City, says they pretty much ONLY sell high end binoculars to wealthy boaters and wealthy hunters, so they only order most of these models. My interest is in the very narrow number of people talking about binoculars that it seems no one in the world (except the military and the mega-rich) ever buy. I would guess that every time we seel a binocular "farmed out" to some remote location like Hungary (Zeiss Diafun), or Japan (Minox [owned by Leica]) or China (Zeiss Diadems), we know it's because this is a model that will sell in large numbers. But the other high-end bins seem to sell so slowly that Nikon has to threaten to discontinue a model like the 10x42 SE to "goose" sales enough to clear 5 year old stock out of dealer inventories, ... so that Nikon can re-open the high-end assembly line again. When I was selling Nikon products and training pros on the in-and-outs of various cameras, Nikon introduced the first "Gold Ring" E models, plus the 9x30 phase coated Diplomat roofer. I asked a factory rep in 1993 if Nikon expected to sell big numbers of the 9x30, and he thought that if he combined all the sales, all the reps in the USA were talking about, Nikon might sell 200 pairs of those bins in the entire year in the USA. This is hardly worth the effort for a sales rep. So with everything working against it the major factories (and a few oddballs like Takahashi and Williams making their flourite bins), a very few thousand uber bins get made every year and factories/retailers try to sell them. The cost of maintaining those high end assembly lines is high. The amount of marketing space the low-selling uber-bins get is the same as the mid price models (except for Bushnell). The sales reps don't want to bother selling uber-bins because there is no money in it for them. The stores certainly don't want to use up valuable inventory money and space on bins that don't sell (my local Cabelas has some Swaros that have been in their displays for 6 years without selling even though they only had "one to show and one to go", while other models have "turned over" 10x or 20x in that same time period). I love these high end bins. I collect them. But I am often surprised at how few people actually buy them for birding (since touristing, boating, hunting and astronomy, plus the huge military market make the birding sales look trivial). And yet there are so many birders. It's a mystery.</blockquote>

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