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My Ziess story:

Back in the mid-80's I was working as a Gunsmith in a Sporting Goods store in Northern California. The Store belonged to a National Sporting Goods Store Association. The owners went to the big show and did a huge buy of Ziess binoculars and scopes-somewhere around a hundred units as memory serves. The items came in mid summer and we quickly sold out. By January we had a 100% return on every unit. They leaked and fogged in the wet rainy climate. Even the Marine binoculars got wet. Early season we also had a number of scopes returned for dust. Hunters traveling the dusty mountain logging roads of northern California had all kinds of problems with dust getting inside. Once the the rains started the fogged scopes and binocular started coming in.

This problem wasn't Unique to Ziess, we had fogged scopes come back for everybody. Ziess only refunded, no repair and only paid on return. The two biggest sellers in the store at that time were Leupold and Tasco World Class. We had very few returns for them. Leupold would repair, exchange, credit or refund. Tasco Exchanged and refunded if requested. And, the Tasco's had the fewest returns and the highest sales.


Now My German Quality Story:

Again in the late 80's early 90's I attended a sales seminar at the SHOT show for SIG. The were announcing a new model made on some new manufacturing process that had increased production volume, retained quality and lowered cost of manufacture-CNC-Polymer moulding? I don't recall. The question was asked at the seminar, if it cost less to manufacture would that lower the retail price. The Nice man with the heavy German Accent responded, "Oh no, this is a German Gun, people expect to pay more."

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At the other end. I was talking with the owner of one of the largest gunshops in Brisbane back around 2004. he told me of two Ziess binoculars that were brought in with faults. The first had the lens coatings starting to go opaque. Zeiss fixed these and returned them at no cost. The second the was becoming blury, lens had moved. Ziess fixed and returned but charge the postage. The first set were U Boat commanders Binos from WW@ the second set were sold in the early 1950's.

I would rate these as better then the newer ones for longevity and workmanship. How times and companies change.

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