Hi,
Interesting post full of real world experiencies...Here is mine.
I met, unexpectedly my first really good binocular in 1981. I saw it in a shopwindow of a second hand optic store in Buenos Aires. Was a binocular, Porro, with its leather case. The binocular body showed some parts lacking of the leather type cover. I enter the shop asking to take a look at them. The price was really RIDICULOUS. Seems to be a right price for the leather case alone...! With the binos at hands and looking throught it, seems it was unused: tight, and with the optics pristine! The leather type cover was dry and thas was the reason some parts were missing. Of course I bought it! My first sample, of many, Swarovski Habicht 10x40!!
Years before I was dreaming of owning a Leica Trinovid or a Zeiss Dialyt. Beautiful instruments, a joy to LOOK AT but, something was not right, or up to the outside design, when LOOKING THROUGHT them...In comparition with the view throught a simple NIKON Porros or older Porro Zeiss, that roof ones were somewhat dim and not too sharp. That was the reason I never end buying a Trinovid or Diatal of that era...
What a discover with the Swarovski Habicht!!!!! In spite of their somewhat yellow tint view, their sharpness and mechanical quality were outstanding!!!! No roof binocular, save a friend´s Zeiss Dialyt 8x56...had NOTHING to do again the Habitcht!! It ended my search for THE binocular to have. Period.
Was my only one for 20 years of really rough use, for my work as a Range Manager in Patagonia Ranches and hunting in the Andes. At the last years the body was partially cover with that leather type cover but its function, mechanics and optics, were as in the begining: tight, collimated and everything right!
One day they went out with other things in a small back pack stollen from my truck...
After that two years later I bought another good binocular, a Leica BA 10x42, that I sold to buy a Zeiss Victory FL 10x42. I really liked this FL sample but I foolishly sold it to buy a newer Zeiss HT 10x42, perhaps the most ergonomic binocular design I have had. But it has an unacceptable veiling glare looking with the sun at an angle near the objectives. I HATE that veiling glare in ANY optic instrument!!! The former FL was much better in this. Well, in the end, I sold the HT to buy a new, 2019 made...Swarovski Habicht W GA!!!!! As to find an old friend!! MAIN binocular, again, and the best for my uses. The sharpest, to me, and the ones with the highest light transmition of all 10x40/42 binocular. Plus, the rubber cover is in its own class. Military grade, seems to be very different to the rubber used in all other binoculars I know.
My other favorite is a Meopta Meostar B1 8x32. An outstanding all around binocular, nothing to envy to any other top 8x32 one, in my experience.
Both binocular models are, in my oppinion, real BARGAINS!!
Sorry for the lenghty post!
CF