Good morning Greg,

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For starters I’d suggest visiting Markarian Fine Optics on Kingsway:

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The owner, Harout Markarian, is the former co-owner of Vancouver Telescope (now closed). I bought my first inexpensive spotting scope from him there about 15 years ago, then upgraded to another one there about 12 years ago. I also bought some Vortex binoculars from him there 11 years ago. Once I’ve told him my budget for something, he has never tried to up-sell me.

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About 2 years ago Harout opened Markarian Fine Optics as the sole owner. About 6 months ago I bought this spotting scope from him: . I’ve been quite pleased with it. Even though it’s an inexpensive scope, it surprisingly comes with a zippered stay-on cover, a protective screw-on eye-piece cylinder and a protective screw-on front-end cap.

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I find his honesty beyond question. For example this past December, during the Vancouver and Ladner Christmas Bird Counts, my 11-year-old Vortex 10x42 binoculars started fogging up badly in one side and developed numerous strange, bright squiggly lines in the other side. In other words, they became useless. Since I still had the White Rock and Pitt Meadows CBC’s to do, I went to Harout for advice. His response was amazing. Since he has an in-house service department, he said he could open up my binoculars and try to fix the problem, which would cost $50 to $100 in labour. But he warned me there was no guarantee the problem was fixable. So instead, he told me Vortex has a lifetime warranty on ALL their binoculars, regardless of price. (I had no idea.) He felt that since mine had 2 problems, Vortex might just replace them with brand new ones. He was right!! I couriered them to Vortex back east and a month later received some brand new Vortex 10x42 binoculars, equivalent in quality to my old ones.

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There’s more. Harout definitely thinks like a customer. Since he knew how important it was for me to have binoculars for my remaining 2 CBCs, he immediately offered to lend me some brand new Pentax 10x42 binoculars, until I received either repaired or replacement ones back from Vortex! I definitely did not hint for that. I just expected I’d have to try and borrow some from a friend or relative. He just offered without being asked. (As a return favour to Harout, I was luckily able to arrange for a friend to buy those loaners from him.)

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As you all know, high-end 10x42 binoculars like Swarovski, Leica and Zeiss sell in the $2000-plus range, so I would expect them to have a lifetime warranty. But since my replacement Vortex 10x42 binoculars are only mid-range quality, retailing for around $750, I would not have expected them to have a lifetime warranty. So like John Gordon, I’m a customer for life!

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So whether it’s a spotting scope or binoculars you’re looking for, I’d highly recommend at least visiting Harout to see what he has to offer.

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Cheers,

Colin Clasen

Coquitlam, BC

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