Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics OPTEX / Sears Bions?

So I was at my Dad-in-laws yesterday, and he hands me three sets of binoculars, all in really great shape! They are all from the 70's, a 7x35 marked OPTEX, a 7x50 & a 10x50, both marked SEARS. All are also marked "Coated Optics", and the leather cases are not only in great shape, but all cases are the same and the various print is the same, so I think they are likley the same manufactuer, but what I am curious about is, how do these compare to current models?

Check over on birdforum, a guy by the handle of FrankD (he's on here as well) has run through a bunch of older Sears binos. Some of which were reported to be quite good. Discoverer maybe rings a bell?

I bought a Sears from him and it has a very nice wide field but the rest of the optics are below Leupold-Yosemite grade. VG construction, but sweet spot not huge. Very short ER (since its ultra wide angle?)

Those older Japanese porros from the days of the Japan Telescope Inspection Institute were and in many way, still are pretty amazing optically. They were as good as it got with single, hard coated optics.

This is a list of all the makers
http://home.europa.com/~telscope/jbcode.txt

There are many. There will be two number codes stamped (almost always) on the objective end of the hinge. One is the J-B and the other the J-E. The J lays over at an angle and is propped in place by the dash, so the number looks funny. The J-B is the final finisher and the J-E is who did the metalwork. If one place did the whole thing, there will just be a J-B code.

I have maybe 20 pair of these older Japanese porros and frankly they are all good enough to go hunting with today. With few exceptions, today's porros do not match up well to the golden age Japanese stuff. These older porros with up to date glass and coatings would be a sight to see. They mostly are not worth a hoot if you are an obligate eye glass wearer because they have little eye relief, especially the wide angle styles. We don't have a clue based on today's stuff what a wide angle binocular really is.