david weaver
where something inexpensive and Chinese will fit the bill better. I think you'll instantly want to see more than you can see with 10x. That's what happened to me with 25. I liked the scope because I could see things better, but I couldn't see things as well as I wanted to when it came to what's going on at the edge.

I can't access the pictures I took of blade edges with a $12 microscope - google image sees them where I posted them years ago, but I get an error when I try to download them. they were surprisingly good. I'd probably put the cutoff at 100x - you'll be able to see everything that's important and visible, and if you decide you want to examine other things, it'll work well for that. The cheapies have LEDs around the lens, so you can literally just sit them on top of something like a fine washita stone and get a picture like the one attached here (this is just the thumbnail that I could get from this picture - I'm sure I could dig up edge pictures tonight).

Money on a good micrometer would probably be well spent.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I may not have a proper idea of what you're looking to do, or you may decide otherwise because I have bad judgement!