Doctor Optics?

[wooduckman]

I have my vortex razor spotter up for sale/trade on craigslist and a guy offered a trade that included a pair of Docter 10x42 binos (he valued them at $600). I have never heard of them and have done quite a bit of research and am not turning up much info. Any body here familiar with them and able to shed any light?

 

[Hatchet Jack]

I believe they are German. I've looked through the nobilem 15x60 porro prisms and they were pretty decent. I imagine the 10s would be pretty good glass. Some of the hard core coues hunters use the docter 30x80 binos and really like them. That is all I know.

 

[wooduckman]

Thanks for the info! The lack of detail available online scares me off a bit.

 

[tater]

Docter is part of the Carl Zeiss/Jena Optiks legacy. Docter is the old Jena Optiks ( Jena was an old Zeiss factory that was on East side of Berlin Wall). They are a smaller brand that came out of post-re-unification Germany with some amazing products, but no real working capital and huge competition from Zeiss and Leica.

They are still in business, but are more of a boutique manufacturer, like Optolyth (which also makes great optics as well). Not "Big Three" optics, but good solid build with good glass and coatings.

I have an older Optolyth drawscope that for the money impossible to beat and I have looked through a few pairs of Docters and put them with the German made Minox (slightly behind the Meopta Meostars non-HD, and ahead of the usual mid-range offerings like Vortex and Leupold).

 

[wooduckman]

Wow thanks for all the info. I ended up getting a smoking deal on 2 month old Swaro SLCs so ended up not making the trade.