Dear Tweeters,

When I bought my binoculars about six or seven years ago, Swarovski was my second choice. I would have gone with them, but Brunton had fast focussing, and Swarovski had not yet offered a binocular that could be focussed rapidly between close and distant ranges. I also thought at the time that the Bruntons were a tiny bit more ergonomic in my hands. I liked Leica's view, but their binoculars always seem to have a strange, grainy feel to the focussing mechanism, as if there were sand in the gears. They also tend to be heavy.

Of course, a short time later, Swarovski started selling binoculars with fast focus, but I had already bought the Bruntons, with which I am very happy.

Although I don't have Swarovski binoculars, I do have a Swarovski HD 80 straight scope that I bought new in 1997. Just the other day, I was birding with a friend who has a much newer Swarovski 80mm scope, fluorite coated like mine. For some odd reason, my scope was brighter than his--he agreed with this assessment, after looking at a distant gull through both scopes. Hm.

Anyway, in 2008, my scope lost its watertight integrity through normal wear and tear. I doubt I use my scope and binoculars as much as Richard Rowlett uses his optics, but I would say that I use them more than just on a "weekend warrior" basis, so they get a lot of wear and tear.

I was not very happy with Swarovski's handling of the matter. Oh, I did put up with the expense of sending the unit via insured mail to Rhode Island.Also, tt was great to have a loaner--although I did not and still do not like the new green scopes as much as the older grey ones. The people I talked with on the phone in Rhode Island were very nice.

Oh, and on one such phone call, I reminded them of what it said in my letter that I had enclosed in the packaging. "Enclosed also find the eyepiece."

"Eyepiece?" asked the person. There was some rustling and bustling about in the background. The representative was very honest. She had gone back and pulled my eyepiece, still in its original box, out of the trash bin of the shipping and receiving room! Phew!

The really annoying thing was, the Austrians sat on that repair job for close to half a year. I had the loaner all that time, including through a trip to Ecuador. The loaner scope survived a head-on collision that our guide got us into on an Andean road. I survived, too. I can't imagine what sort of hassle it would have been if I had needed a loaner for the loaner, or a loaner, for that matter, for my wife's husband [me]!

In any case, what irked me is that when I got my scope back months later, it came with paperwork detailing how many hours they'd worked on it, and how much those hours cost them--as if they were doing me such a magnanimous favor. It turned out that the total number of hours worked were very few indeed. That job could have been accomplished in half a work week.

Even if the scope had gone to and from Austria by sea, including canal boat rides via the Rhein and Danube, Swarovski could have had it back to me in a month and a half, tops. I think they sat on it to "punish" me for saddling them with a costly repair.

On the other hand, the Brunton binoculars needed a major repair one time, and that whole thing took a matter of weeks. That's the way it should be when you buy top-end stuff.

Yours truly,

Gary Bletsch?Near Lyman, Washington (Skagit County), USA?garybletsch at yahoo.com

?Mentre che li occhi per la fronda verde
ficcava ?o s? come far suole
chi dietro a li uccellin sua vita perde, lo pi? che padre mi dicea: ?Figliuole,
vienne oramai, ch? ?l tempo che n?? imposto
pi? utilmente compartir si vuole?.??