Okay Classics Aficionados, If you could pick just three classics from your collection, what would they be? I’ve had well over thirty, from multiple Unitrons, Celestrons, Meades, Vixens, Takahashis, Gotos, Sears, Zeiss, Questar (yes, I’ve from two to six of each of the brands I just named), plus various single specimens from other brands over the past 12 years. Well it’s been cut down to just three keepers: they are :
- Vixen ED102SS (c. 2000, Japan) on a Vixen Porta II mount and HAL110 tripod,
- Questar Standard with Broad-Band coatings and Cer-Vit mirror (1969),
- Mayflower/APL 60mm Model 814 (Japan, 1965), the one that started it all!
I cut way back for a three reasons:
- Getting older and I didn’t want to burden my kith and kin with the undo responsibility and burden of getting rid of them, plus I wanted to save them from the landfill.
- I decided to sell my house and move into a condo in a multi-story building so less storage space and stairs/elevator necessitated fewer and smaller scopes.
- I came to the realization that at heart and from the beginning and most of my 60 years in the hobby, I am primarily an observer, not a collector. I really got into collecting on from a happenstance trip to a thrift store, and coincidently discovering this forum in 2012. Those two things started a decade of Classic Telescope Collecting mania, or CTC syndrome, an affliction which I presume many of you possess, admittedly or not.
Which three out of your collection would you keep, and what would it take to go down to just three classics?
Edited by Terra Nova, 03 November 2024 - 01:18 PM.