Precision Magnifier with LED and UV lamp, 10x magnification, 6 white hi-tech and 7 UV LEDs

Some flaws only exist in the right light. The trick is owning the right light.

This is a 10x precision magnifier built around a three-lens system — achromatic and aplanatic, which is the optical way of saying the image stays sharp and true to colour all the way to the edge, not just in the middle. It carries two sets of LEDs: six white for ordinary close inspection, and seven ultraviolet for the things that prefer to stay hidden — security fibres in banknotes, restorations, cleanings, and the faint tell-tale glow of paper that is younger than it claims to be.

It is the ultraviolet that has saved Jonah from himself more than once. He still remembers the evening a banknote arrived looking far too good for its supposed age, crisp and confident and almost persuasive. Under the UV it lit up like a fairground — modern optical brighteners where there should have been none — and the note went quietly back where it came from. He has never entirely trusted a piece that looks too pleased with itself since, and he checks. The eye wants to believe; ultraviolet does not.

Magnification shows you what is there. The right light shows you what is wrong.

A collector who can see clearly is a collector who is harder to fool.