Vintage Leupold porro individual eye focus 9x35 vs New Leupold BX-4 Pro Guide HD 10x32.

[TaperPin]

I haven’t picked up an old school porro bino since sometime in the 1980s, but a borrowed pair of these Leupolds was my introduction to glassing way back then, so I’ve been curious how bad they really were. Many pickups had a pair rattling around in the glove box back in the day. These are individual eye focus, so once they are set for your eyes everything is sharp from pretty close to infinity. Kind of weird, but not as weird as the feel holding them. There’s a trickle of them on eBay as old geezers like me kick the bucket and wives sell things at the estate sale for pennies on the dollar, so I was able to order a pair with slight wear for less than $100.

My current glove box/loaner binos are bx-4 10x32 Pro Guide HD Leupolds from a couple years ago, which aren’t spectacular by any means, but are quite usable for western hunting. New these were $450ish.

I expected the old Gold Rings to be slightly less sharp from either the design, lower quality coatings, or a few decades of improper cleaning having scratched the lenses. Since the 1990s optic makers have bragged about new coatings and lens design being so much better every year. The lenses that showed up have no visible scratches in the coatings so that’s lucky. Anyway, in the end I could actually see details on animals slightly better with them and light transmission in the middle of the day was noticeably brighter with the old glass. Who knew. I bet there are a number of old guys who still use them, heck I may start using them just to look more vintage. *chuckle*

 

[TaperPin]

Somewhat related to these old Leupolds, I can still remember the first trip to Sidney, Nebraska to compare the big name binoculars of the time. I don’t recall Swaro even being a thing back then, but maybe they just didn’t have a pair in stock. Zeiss was clearly the best, then Leica then Leupold. Even the compact Zeiss was more clear than the full size gold rings. Leica was making compacts for Leupold so there was little difference between them. I don’t see why the 30 year old Zeiss wouldn’t still be better. Seems like these would be good for people watching at baseball games.

 

[nm.otter]

I remember a few dads with Bausch & Lomb porros when I was a kid -- and being blown away by the first pair of Trinovids I picked up.

 

[TaperPin]

Since it takes a $600 Leupold BX-5 Santium to get better results than these old gold rings, I ordered another pair even older than the original pair. These were $125, but appear new other than two very small dings on the unarmored aluminum. Even the leather man-purse storage case looks and feels brand new. If memory is correct, the leather case version is older than the previous one which came with a nylon fabric case, so it could be over 40 years old. Seems many young hunters in the family when they are ready for their first binoculars will be made fun of for having weird looking grampa models, but they will work surprisingly well. I might even get a few extra for loaners. lol

The BX-4 was a way to sell guys on worse binoculars, leading them to believe they are in the same class as gold ring binoculars used to be. Not surprising, but disappointing.

 

[ozyclint]

How well do they hold zero?

Porro prisms are a under rated. They provide excellent views.
My Swaro Habicht's are amazing pieces of optical equipment. A 79 year old design with Alpha views and better light transmission than the NL Pure. It's hard to beat less reflection surfaces of porros.