Hello from West Chester, Pennsylvania!

[Docgene888]

I posted earlier today in the Camera Imaging forum. Copying a portion of that post here:

Hello all,

I joined the forum back in August but got caught up in work projects and am just now catching my breath so this is my first post. I had an interest in film photography back in high school (Minolta SRT-101) and then in digital photography (mostly Nikon DSLRs) after I established my first practice in Tucson in the early 1980’s. I also have had an interest in microscopy since my undergrad/grad school days as a microbiology major. Now that I am nearing retirement, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do with my spare time and after much reflection, I decided to blend my two life-long interests and take up photomicroscopy as a hobby. I purchased compound and stereo microscopes on sale from AmScope earlier in the year to verify my current interest and future dedication to this hobby and thankfully, both were confirmed! My day job is as a physician administrator at a VA hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs and through a colleague I became aware of an auction open to the public of six microscopes, four of which were made by Olympus, that came from the pathology lab at a VA Hospital (not the one I work at but not far from where I live) conducted online by the General Services Administration (www.gsaauctions.gov). For those so inclined, GSA auctions are a terrific way to buy lab and medical equipment at prices far below market value. The only thing that limits availability is locality in that you have to pick-up your purchase in-person...GSA will not ship items to the winner. From this forum and Oliver Kim’s informative videos, I learned about the desirability of microscopes made by the “Big 4” (in fact, I recall using Zeiss microscopes in med school). In the end, I was the high bidder and two days later, I picked up six microscopes - 2 Olympus CX31s, 2 Olympus SZ61TRs with LED bases, one AO 1036A and one AO 110 Dual Head with a 40x phase contrast set-up. The four Olympus scopes are essentially in like-new condition with annual preventive maintenance having been performed by the facility’s biomedical engineering department. I decided to keep one of the CX31s because of the quality of the infinity (UIS 2) plan optics and both of the older AO microscopes as future restoration projects. I will be selling the other CX31 and both of the Olympus stereo microscopes, most likely on ebay. So that’s a bit about me and how I came to join this forum. I would just like to add that I hope to be able to make meaningful contributions here.

Thanks