I was cleaning out old email messages an came across this. It was a receipt for my first thermal weapon sight purchase. This was very exciting. I saved up the money, cleared it with the wife, searched long and hard for a good deal, and Optics Planet had it (note, I do NOT suggest buying from OP). I made my order and got this receipt, followed by a series of other communications requiring me to fill out ITAR and some other paperwork...which I haven't had to do again after 2014 that I recall.

Check out the price. This was for a 320 resolution ATN Thor that was $7499 list and I got a smokin' deal for $6824.99. I recall being so excited when the scope came, until I turned it on. The scope was defective and neither ATN or Optics Planet was very helpful on the matter and I don't do business with either, now.

Is that not an amazing price? It sounds a little high, doesn't it. At that point in time, 320 and 384 resolution scopes cost about $7-10 grand. For a 640 scope, you were starting at about $10 grand for commercial units and $15-30 grand for FLIR and other military type thermals. Not a lot of people had thermals at that time. Most of us were still using ugly digital night vision or spot lighting.

In 2014, something caused FLIR to drop the prices of their cores and scope prices dropped by nearly half. I ended up with an Armasight Zeus 640 3x a few months later for $7000 or $7100.

I know folks like to complain about prices. I am right there with them, but thermals and digital night vision have both improved quite a bit over the years and dropped in the price.

For reference, this sight shows some historic prices...
http://www.nitevis.com/ATN_ThOR_TIWSMT323C.htm

I’m liking the 0.00 sales tax of those days too !

I still have my two Armasight Zeus 3-24x75mm 640 I bought in September of 2014. Still working too.

I remember thinking that a thermal scope was something I would likely never own. I also remember when I finally did decide to pull the trigger on one (they had come down in price A LOT), I asked the merchant if thermals would eventually fall even further in price like most electronic technology does, and I was told not to expect to see that. Prices aren't really that much lower now, but I think the capabilities and quality have both improved significantly for the money spent. I'm on my sixth thermal device now.

Yea I remember being at a predator hunting extravaganza back 15 or more years ago and they had thermals you could try out all over 10K and I told the guy I would wait until they were selling them in plastic blister packs at Walmart for 99.95. Still waiting

Thermals will be $99.95 in blister packs at Wal-Mart when thermal becomes obsolete.

Yes, I'm waiting for the IR scopes that just have an 'IR to visible' converter screen in them. I'm not joking, they are developing it.