Where are Televue EP made from?

[cookie8]

Happily took the TV discount opportunity and bought 2 EPs from Bintel
7mm Nagler type 6 and
24mm Panoptic
On the barrel the 7mm has "Japan" on it but the Panoptic has "Taiwan ROC" on it. What does it all mean? Why am I paying premium price for a Taiwanese product? I thought TV EP are all made in US.
Could someone fill me in please?

[erick]

Was just reading a thread on this on Cloudy Nights the other day. Not made in the US. Some in Japan and some in China. I'll find the thread and post below.

Here it is:-

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/4520899/page/2/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

In summary:-

"Nagler Zoom, Plossls and Type 6 Naglers are made in Japan. The rest are made in Taiwan ROC."

[koputai]

Great choice! I ordered the same two eyepieces on Saturday.

Cheers,
Jason.

[DavidU]

I got a Radian 4mm, a great eyepiece. The clickstop raised eyeguard is a fab idea.

[cookie8]

Yes Jason. One for widefield and one for planetary. Bintel must be selling them like hotcakes.

[barx1963]

Vincent
You will love the 24mm Pan, great value at those prices.

Malcolm

[Profiler]

I can help with this mystery as I had the audacity to ask exactly this same question and got my answer straight from the horses mouth - the good folks in the Bintel store Sydney.

Why are some TV EPs stamped Japan and others Taiwan and why am I paying big dollars for a Taiwan made eyepiece?

The answer is surprising:

Although stamped as from Japan or Taiwan all Televue EP's are strickly made to TV spec's and thus are indeed sourced from different factories around the world dependent on who makes the particular lens/glass better. I have a TV 20mm plossl that must be at least 15 years old and is still stamped Japan.

However, here is the surprising part - although the EPs may be originally made in Japan or Taiwan etc all TV EPs are actually shipped back over to the Televue Suffren NY factory and quality checked in the TV factory before going out for sale.

Apparently the same one man is tasked with the QC job of checking all the EPs for the past 13 years- he is actually from next door - a Kiwi :lol: Small world!

The folks in the Bintel store told me it must be quite a daunting job to do nothing else all day long but test EPs!

[mr bruess]

very interesting facts about televue eyepieces

Gotta add more to my televue eyepiece collection!
:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[FlashDrive]

Bought my 24mm Panoptic from Bintel a couple of day's ago .... !!

I'm happy .... still yet to try it out ..... you know the deal :mad2: ... every time you buy a new piece ... the heavens won't co-operate .... throw clouds and rain at yah .... !!!

Cheers .... Flash :D

[ausastronomer]

Nope you didn't get it straight from the horses mouth. The horses mouth is 16,000km from Bintel, in Chester New York.

I got it straight from the horses mouth :D

I asked Al Nagler this exact question while chatting with him at the 2007 Texas Star Party ;)

He said he used two manufacturers as a safeguard for contingencies. The recent Tsunami in Japan showed how smart a business strategy this might be. Al mentioned the Taiwan factory had slightly better tooling to make the physically larger eyepieces, eg. T4's,T5's and Panoptics. This is the reason the physically smaller eyepieces; the Nagler T6's, Radians and TV Plossls, are manufactured in Japan and the larger eyepieces like the Nagler T4's, T5's, Panoptics and ETHOS are manufactured in Taiwan. Al specifically mentioned there was no difference in manufacturing quality bewtween the Japanese and Taiwanese plants and that every eyepiece manufactured went through personal inspection and quality control at the Televue plant in New York and each manufacturer had a similar and very low rejection rate. Al also mentioned that in the event of a problem with one of the plants, the other plant could easily manufacture all of the eyepieces produced by Televue so supply would be unaffected.

I quickly figured that Al Nagler was not only a great optical designer but a very smart businessman.

Cheers,
John B

[ausastronomer]

Just adding a little more to my previous comments. As part of our 3RF inventory we have a lot of Televue eyepieces from both manufacturers. I can't pick any difference in manufacturing quality between them. I find it to be a very high standard from both. If I was rating them out of 10, they would get a 9/10. I think the instadjust on the Radians and T4 Naglers could be better and this is probably why TV has changed the system on the new Delos series, to a double rubber ring locking system. I would rate my Pentax XW's at about 9.4/10 in terms of overall manufacturing quality and fit and finish. The 12.5mm Docter I used recently at Coonababran would get a 9.8 out of 10. It was about as nice a piece of manufactured equipment as you're likely to find. Essentially faultless and typical of a lot of German manufacture.

Cheers,
John B

[gary]

Just to follow-up on John's comments, I was kindly taken around on an inside
tour of the modern Tele Vue facility in the pretty little town of Chester, which is in
up-state New York.

All eyepieces are manufactured to Tele Vue's demanding standards in either Taiwan
or Japan. They were making their telescopes in the Chester facility. Al kindly
demonstrated to me some of the gear they use for optical testing.

Tele Vue is a family run business.
Picture of Al and David Nagler I snapped in their office below.

Best Regards

Gary Kopff
Managing Director
Wildcard Innovations Pty. Ltd.
20 Kilmory Place, Mount Kuring-Gai
NSW. 2080. Australia
Phone +61-2-9457-9049
Phone +61-2-9457-9593
sales@wildcard-innovations.com.au
http://www.wildcard-innovations.com.au

[astroron]

Hi Vincent:hi: the days of crappy stuff from Taiwan are long gone especialy for high end products, as they compare to any place else where in the world.:)
This can be judged by the amount of happy Nagler and other eyepiece users of Taiwanese manufacture praised on this forum:thumbsup:
Cheers

[mozzie]

thanks for the thread very interesting to hear how things are done....

i love my televue's!!!!!!!