LOUPES COMPARED
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See also, How to Choose a Magnifier

A loupe is a small folding magnifier, typically 10X magnification (though it can be as low as 5X or as high as 30X). When examining marks on jewellery or the quality of gemstones, or anything small (stamps, coins, insect & plant samples, PCB solder joints...) a loupe is your most important tool, without being able to see, all other tools are useless.

Loupes for sale on this Website are divided mostly by price. The basic strength is 10X (which is used for nearly everything), and apart from that, the only thing to know is that the more you pay the better the quality of the lens. The price of 10X loupes varies from £1.50 to £95.00.

The very simplest loupes contain just one lens; better loupes contain two (doublets), very good loupes contain three (triplets) and a very few contain five (we say "five element"). These lenses (elements) are placed on top of each other, and each corrects for the distortions of the previous. Since all the lenses are transparent, the overall appearance is of just one lens. Scroll down slightly to read more about how these lenses are made and why there is so much variation in price.

As regards magnification, there are very few uses for anything more powerful than 10X.

For extra power you might want to try a 15X (I'd recommend the 15X12) but, personally, I'd stick with a 10X.

If you have to read particularly small laser-engraving on diamonds (writing that is a fraction of a millimeter in size) then do go for a 20X. But, generally, 20X is too powerful, you lose image quality and focusing is difficult.

By the time you get up to 30X you are asking the near-impossible. You will have to hold the lens about 8mm from the object (to get it to focus) and it will go out of focus if you move the lens too close (e.g. 6mm) or too far away (e.g. 10mm) and the image will appear be dark and it will be distorted around the edges - because it simply isn't possible to make good loupes this powerful.

If you want a loupe more powerful than 30X - you are just being silly. I do have samples from manufacturers marked "40X" and even "50X" - but the markings are not true, they turn out to be very poor quality 10X or 20X lenses of the type you see on sell-it-cheap market stalls. If you want something more powerful than 20X, buy a microscope.

TRIPLET LOUPES (AND 5-ELEMENT LOUPES)

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There is a company selling "triplet loupes" who have registered the trade name Triplet and who claim that if you buy a triplet loupe from anyone else you will not be buying the genuine Triplet quality.They are correct in that, having registered the name Triplet, it is only they who sell their own-brand (being 'Triplet') - however their loupes are not triplets! - and the optical quality is so poor that the weaker loupes give a fuzzy image and the stronger loupes are so bad they are unusable.

Now I have no objection to other companies selling loupes, but registering the name Triplet and selling loupes that are not triplets...now that is a 'con'! And then people were asking why our triplets are so much more expensive. So we have responded by offering a wider selection of loupes, from true triplet loupes (and 5-element loupes) to not-really-triplets-at-all (all accurately described, of course).

EXAMPLES OF SINGLE LENSES, TRIPLETS AND 5-ELEMENTS LENSES

We sell a double loupe: one side is a 10X and the other side is a 20X. And we sell two versions, one for £5.00 (pictured left) and one for £30.00 (pictured right). They are identical in outer appearance.

Look closely at the PICTURE ON THE RIGHT (you may have to click on it to enlarge), the left lens is a triplet, it is made of three lenses ("elements") cemented together (you can see where they are joined), the right hand lens is a 5-element (two of the lenses are each made of two lenses joined together, and the third is a single lens, all very precisely separated with metal spacers). We sell this loupe for £30.00.

Now look at the PITURE ON THE LEFT. It has two single lenses, no 'triplet', no '5-element'. The big lens is marked "10X Triplet" and the small lens is marked "20X, 5-element" - this is completely untrue, one is 7X and the other is 10X. The 7X lens is OK in quality (for a 7X), the 10X lens is such poor quality that it is virtually unusable. When I say, 'virtually unusable' I mean that only the very middle of the lens can be made to focus but most of the image will be fuzzy. This is not (as many people think) a fault of their eyes, but simply because the lens quality is poor. This is what you get for £5.00.

Please do remember that when you use these loupes (without taking them apart!) you can't see how many lenses there are in each section, because each lens (element) is transparent. It is the number of elements and the quality of the lens that makes good or bad quality.

Similarly, we sell a single 10X triplet for £4.50 and another (same size) for £22.50.

So as you see, we offer all qualities from street market / eBay quality to true professional quality, you pay your money and you takes your choice.