I’m a stamp and coin collector. Which microscope is best for getting pictures of a whole stamp or coin?

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	I’m a stamp and coin collector. Which microscope is best for getting pictures of a whole stamp or coin?

Answer You want a microscope that has a very low power.

Since most coins and stamps are approximately an inch in their maximum dimension, only powers less than 10 times magnification will be capable of showing the whole specimen. Only Celestron's Handheld Digital Microscopes and Handheld Digital and Optical Microscopes can deliver low enough magnifications. They may have to be raised off a surface to achieve lower powers and correspondingly large fields of view to see your entire specimen.

Microscopes designed for viewing slides, such as Celestron's LCD Digital Microscope, typically have lowest powers of about 40x. This is much too high a magnification and will only show you a small part of a typical coin like a dime or a standard postage stamp.

An alternative way of imaging an entire coin or stamp is to use a DSLR with a macro lens or a point and shoot digital camera with a macro mode.

Article Details

Article ID:

2417

Created On:

Sep 24 2010 04:50 PM