I recently had a good experience purchasing some slides on eBay and I wanted to share.
I find that Ward's slides are of consistently good quality for thickness, stain and selection BUT their shipping charges are outrageous for small orders. Unfortunately i learned that the hard way after spending a couple of hours with their catalogue deciding what I wanted to order.
From my recent experience and opinion I find that the quality of prepared slides are, in order of decreasing quality: Turtox and Eisco tie for first, then Wards, Carolina and Lieder. From my experience Lieder is like the little girl with the curl.
In any case there is an eBay seller that currently has a large supply of like new Ward's and Eisco slides that he is selling for reasonable prices with free shipping. They are supposed to be surplus from a university but all of the ones I purchased were as new.
I got all that I wanted already, so I have not problem alerting others. Most of his slides are in the $6 to $8 range for slides that would be $8 to $14 normally and he gives discounts for multiple purchases.
Neal
