Seeing the tiny details...magnifier?

I need a magnifier for seeing the details in my cards and have been doing some research..there are so many different kinds, loupes, lighted, round, square, large, small, and so many different powers and price ranges!

Can anyone recommend a good one and why you chose it? Or a place you trust to buy one? Would make a perfect gift for the season

Hi AJ-

Right now all I have is a regular magnifying glass with a smaller, round area if you want more magnification. Like you, I found there were so many to choose from it was overwhelming, so I just picked one with the most magnification and went for it. It has been okay generally, but now I am thinking about getting a jeweler's glass. It's what jeweler's use to examine gems and such. I've looked around a bit and found a few pawn shops that have them.

Good lighting is also a plus, but the ones I have seen that come with lights don't generally have any higher magnification than those without. But if you needed extra lighting, one of these might be in order. I have plenty of light already so something like that would be a waste in my opinion.

I've also consider a microscope for those extremely tiny details, but this might be too much. I would be interested in hearing if anyone else has tried a microscope and what your opinons are.

along with a hand-held magnifyer...

Discount stores often carry Magnifying Lamps
for $10 which are convenient in many ways...

I've tried using a magnifying glass (just a regular one) on my Spiral because some of the art is kind of dark and I've heard others talking about using one so I thought I'd try it. But I don't understand the need to use extreme magnification to read the cards. I seriously doubt the card artist hid anything vital to a reading that can't be seen with the naked eye. Why would they? I mean, surely there's not some mysterious significance painted into a pore on the skin of the character or something.

I find that if I buy the strongest reading glasses and use a full spectrum light ( I have a small one I use for beading) it works just fine. Magnifying glasses just get removed and lost (my budding little scientist uses them outdoors). My reading glasses have no appeal to him.

Jen

Lyric, you are probably a lot younger than I am I wear tri-focals and use good light, but even my cheap magnifying glass (which distorts on the edges) brings up things I don't see, or never noticed before. Its a lovely way to get to know a new deck, or look at a card that is being mute in a reading....

edited to add: this thread
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=1440
is a good reason to use a magnifier and what got me started thinking about this several months ago.

Why, bless your heart! No, I'm probably not younger than you are. I just turned 61 in November. I think I was thrown by the jeweler's loupe and microscope comments more than anything. I apologize for thoughtless comments.

When it comes to optical lenses of any kind, you can buy very cheap or very expensive.

To a degree, you can get what you pay for. A very cheap lens will distort around the edges, and these cause eye strain after a while.

A very expensive lens *might* have better optice (but in this case you might pay a premium for the frame and/or age- if it's an antique).

If you plan on using it for long periods of time (say an hour or more) I wouldn't suggest getting anything too cheap, as it can give you ha headache! But I also wouldn't go overboard on the quality- there is a certain point at which you get diminishing returns. This point will be different for different people (those with bad eyes will have more trouble seeing the difference).

I would suggest something 3-4 inches in diameter, and not made with a plastic lens. A pretty good one might cost as much as a normal tarot deck would cost. If you get smaller lenses, you will find them harder to work with because the distorted portion on the edge of the lense is so close to the area you qill be focusing on.

Another alternative is something that sits on a table top, and is designed to focus on the tabletop- this keeps you from having to move the glass back and forth to focus it yourself- but this also means that you will have to spend your time hunched over the table. If your back is as bad as mine, this is not the best option.

Edit to add- I wouldn't necessarily go for the high magnification jewelers glasses. Because most tarot cards are printed on modern printing presses, if you get too close, you will start to see nothing but a collection of little cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots.

-tb

Lyric said:

I seriously doubt the card artist hid anything vital to a reading that can't be seen with the naked eye. Why would they? I mean, surely there's not some mysterious significance painted into a pore on the skin of the character or something.

Click to expand...

No, but much of the art for decks is painted at a much, much larger size, so that when a publisher reduces it to fit on a card, what the artist painted with the naked eye, no longer exists except under magnification.

Focusing on what is actually there...

There are some people who have become convinced
that Pamela Colman Smith wrote her initials "PCS" on
The Fool card, sideways in broken pieces on the cliff.

The "evidence" comes from someone who once read
aerial maps (professionally?) and has 'found' it there.

So while I'm all for a closer look, it can get weird too.