Shoutout to the $45 microscope I bought for my rock collection

I spent $45 on a cheap digital microscope on Amazon last month just to look closer at some agates I found near a creek. Turns out one of my rocks had tiny crystals inside I never noticed with my naked eye. I felt kind of dumb dropping that much on a toy but it's saved me from buying a bunch of fake rocks on Etsy since now I can ID them myself. Has anyone else blown cash on something like this that turned out to be worth it?

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paige5142mo ago

The cheap digital microscope thing is exactly what I needed to hear because I've been eyeballing those $12 magnifying loupes on Amazon and talking myself out of it for weeks. My neighbor has a whole shelf of rocks he bought at a flea market that turned out to be just dyed quartz and glass chips, and you can't see the fakery until you zoom in close enough to spot the paint drips. That little bit of magnification probably paid for itself the first time you avoided a bad Etsy buy, which is way more than I can say for most dumb purchases I make. Now I'm wondering if I should just spring for the $45 option instead of the loupe since the video feed would let me compare side by side with pictures online.

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