Nikon Labophot and Optiphot microscopes are outstanding in many respects but with one common flaw: broken fine focus gears. This happens when users counter-rotate the focus knobs and the reduction gearing provides immense torque, splitting the plastic gear from its shaft.
For the past few years, a German engineer, respected microscope and photomacrograhy hobbyist, and eBay seller (Lothman24) has sold metal gear repair kits for both the original Nikon Labophot/Optiphot and its successor "2" versions: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=17 ... =lothman24 I've used them - they work well.
Lothar estimates he has sold about 200 of the Labophot/Optiphot 1 version and 50-80 of the Labophot/Optiphot II version - with most of them going to the US. He's now tired of watching eBay listings every day for his two items, packing up pricey DHL boxes, and shipping gears to the US. He hopes to find a US-based eBay seller to buy out his inventory at his cost (and a fraction of the selling cost): https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/ ... rs#p292510
I'm not personally interested in becoming an eBay seller. However, I know that several of you are already eBay sellers and might want to add these items both as a service and a profit-maker. It would be a great shame if hobbyists were no longer able to easily and relatively affordably source these parts. If anyone is interested, I'm happy to put you in touch with Lothar or you can contact him directly at the site listed above.
To add details, the kits include metal gears, subsequently bored out to match the Nikon shaft dimensions, plus a high-strength Loctite adhesive, cleaning wipes, plastic spacers, and other bits needed to make a secure connection. Since these typically need to be sourced in quantity (and then drilled out in quantity), it makes more sense for an individual to buy a kit for $50 or so rather than source the parts themselves or buy the $100 kits some other eBay sellers offer.
As for these various Optiphots and Labophots, they are wonderful system microscopes, with "chrome free" optics available at several levels from achromats, through plan achromats, plan fluors, and plan apos. While the competitive Olympus BH2 models are equivalent, it's often less expensive to get parts like phase condensers and trinocular heads from these Nikon equivalents. Even DIC prisms seem a tiny bit more available than the Olympus counterparts.
Ideally, someone here might want to either buy Lothar's stock at his original cost or perhaps start from scratch in offering similar kits. These should easily fit in a padded First Class envelope, so the shipping price, customs forms, etc. that Lother faces should be only the slightest inconvenience for a US-based seller.