While shopping this weekend with my wife for craft supplies, found a credit card size fresnel with a cover for about 2 dollars at hobby lobby.

Hillbilly, when you say you had a PSK in 1975, I hear you. There was a book I remember reading when I was in elementary school that advocated carrying a PSK. The book may have been a Bradford Angier book, I'm not sure, though. This was in about 1964! Many years before that my Grandad carried a fishing line all rigged up to be a "throw line" wound up around a pc of flat wood or bark, so he could fish anytime. Sometimes he carried this in his back jeans pocket and sometimes he carried it in an old Prince Albert tin. Also he had matches, tobacco and papers in there for a smoke, too, of course. He always had a good large pocket knife, so, this altogether were the rudiments of a PSK, or just being prepared whenever he was out in the woods. I think good woodsmen have done this kind of thing forever and long before the name PSK came into popularity.
-The PSK found in the book 1964 were the following:
1. Candle stub
2. Waterproof kitchen matches dipped in wax
3. Note paper
4. Pencil stub
5. Small box of Chiclets
6. fish hooks, line, sinkers, etc.
7. Pocket knife
8. Whetstone
9. Clear hard plastic hinged box to hold it all

Another good source for cheap ones is the bookstore. Often times they have bookmarks that are fresnel lenses. Chop them up with heavy duty scissors to the size you want. I got three out of one bookmark. You don't need the center of the lens to magnify things or focus light.

Wrong.
You do need the center for them to work.. Cutting up the lens will ruin it.
A Fresnel lens is in essence a convex lens with most of the material removed. It is the curve of the lens that causes the magnification. The ridges that you feel on a fresnel lens are the curved portion with all the rest on the material removed. While you might get some magnification it wopuld be far less than optimum.

I have seen the credit cad size lenses in many book, magizine and novalty stores usually around .50.

I have found credit card size fresnel lenses at office max.

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