Here's a scale and over here we have a microscope.

From my experience these items are aggressively marked up in headshops. They also carry LED's and stuff - but I have no experiance with them so I can't guess at whether they'd be useful or not.

I've ordered from them before and I have no complaints.

EDIT: They also have a considerable selection of LED's...

Nice deal. One note however. I have found when it comes to Scientific Equipment ya get what ya pay for. JMHO enasco also has some fairly affordable instruments too.

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Never owned a scale, but $10.00 is about what I paid for my Radio Shack microscope. Works great, though sometimes I wish I had one of those fancy microscopes that can take pictures. In any event, a cheap microscope is better than no microscope.

My experience has been as MC said "You get what you pay for"

I have bought a few cheap scales and had to replace them all...The one I have now I paid like $60 for and I have had it now a few years...

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"Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it."
— Mark Twain

"You've gotta be outta your mind not to smoke dope"
-Jack Herer

I think 90% or better of small digital scales are chinese made junk, So no need to spend more money on a presumed higher quality of chinese plastic. The cheap ones work well for me just be sure to test/calibrate it regularly. As for the microscope i highly recommend the eyeclops bionicam from Amazon for less then 26$ shipped. But good prices on both items really, i think Radio Shack wants like 20$ for a similar scope.

***Correction*** its now 40 at amazon but i'm sure you could find it cheaper somewhere.