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Pastimes : Ask Mohan about the Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joseph G. who wrote (10669)	12/10/1997 8:42:00 AM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 18056

Smaller telescopes, cameras, and binoculars were for many years mainly made in Japan--as you know--and I guess still are. I was complaining about the eyeglass scam earlier; back in the 1940s and 50s I think there was covert price fixing on cameras in the US. My first real camera was an Argus C-3 that I paid $66 very hard-earned dollars ($1.50 an hour putting out forest fires)for and used for years. At present dollars value that was about $275. It was a rugged camera anfd I got good pictures with it but it had a slow lens, no double-exposure protection, no theough-the-lens focusing. Today you can get something comparable for about $27.50. Or under $50. But maybe I am wrong--maybe the mass market for 35mm cameras just wasn't there in 1956. And I still have the Argus though it hasn't taken a picture for years. A lot of larger telescopes are mostly fabricated in the US. I think that Celestron does all their own work on the major components in their plant in California. Finder scopes and eyepieces they must import. Many of those 60 mm Japanese refactors are good instruments though the mounts can be very wobbly and the eyepieces are pretty sorry. But for $100 anyone can see the rings of Saturn much better than Galileo ever did. I don't own any of the compact (Maksutov) scopes, but they look awfully good for something you could pack in a suitcase and cost about $350. For decades Questar had a very high-priced monopoly on that kind of thing in the US. I do remember saying, as the good Japanese cameras began to capture the US market, "Just wait until they start making automobiles." That was about 1960. Wish I had had the money and knowledge of how to invest it in the Japanese auto industry then. That's where Templeton made a Temple-ton. I think the Chinese should open a huge chain of luxury nursing homes and import old people (like me) from the United States, feeding them delicious foods and wines served by beautiful young women in gardens full of flowers and wind-chimes.