I went to the mall with my wife to see what was on post Christmas sale. We’re wandering around when we come across a store with a name I recognize as a high end retailer. We go in and I ask to see one of their fine items, at which point the woman behind the counter looks at me (as one of my friends would say) “like I have a dick growing out of the center of by forehead” and my wife makes a noise indicated her displeasure at taking me out in public once again.
I love my wife, but we are two different people.
Apparently I was thinking this:
When to the rest of the civilized world, Swarovski means this:
I’m pretty sure it’s the same company that makes both. They make fine high-clarity crystal glass. Some of that glass is in the shape of rifle scopes and some is sparkly and pretty.
Swarovski started out making crystal (leaded glass) in the early part of the 20th century. Glass cutting and polishing is a fine art, so they started making optics for the German and Austrian military for WWII. If you can grind crystal for jewelry, you can grind crystal for lenses. Swarovski Optic is a subsidiary of Swarovski. They also own Tyrolit, a company that makes grinding wheels and abrasives. They started out making their own grinding materials for polishing glass, then decided to start selling their grinding materials too. All of it relates back to jewelry polishing.
It is the same reason that Zeiss makes rifles scopes, and microscopes and other laboratory metrology equipment. If you can make a good lens, you are going to put it into everything you can.