Well yes we have used them all. At first we would refer you to both Zeiss & Clave but they are very rare. For planetary,lunar, and solar observing we enjoy the Brandons which we use on our 6" refractor at the observatory. However what we like the most is the Lumicon 2" diag., Filters from William optics but the best eyepieces to use on a large aperture Celestron/Mead SCT. are the 2" Meade 40mm SWA, Televue 2" 20mm Nagler, and either the Meade 8.8 SWA or the Televue 2" 9mm Nagler. We also enjoy the classic 26mm Plossl from Celestron. For the Bino-viewer we enjoy the views through the classic Tuthill. Hope the information will help one in the selection of fine accessories for their telescope. Remember however the Brandons are the best! Happy skies everyone.

Clave (Or Clavé) eyepieces were the first mass marketed Plössl: aside from Plössls built by Zeiss (Pre WWII), they likely remain the sole "true Plössls" eyepieces available (other Plössls eyepieces are in fact Symmetricals, far cheaper to manufacture, but with lower performances). Clavé eyepieces are still considered as superb eyepieces and very, very, hard to beat for contrast, light transmission and sharpness over a 51 degree AFOV. There are eyepieces with slightly better contrast or light transmission, but they will sacrifice AFOV (such as the Monocentric eyepiece).

Originally, the eyepiece was designed by Jean Texereau (world renowed optician, among amateurs and professionals) in 1953 when he was the head of the "Commission des Instruments" (Telescope design and construction group) of the SAF (Societe Astronomique de France, the national association of french amateurs astronomers). Basically, he contacted two firm to produce his Plössl design, one of them Clavé. Clavé produced the best eyepiece of the two firms and was chosen by Texereau to produce this eyepiece. Production started in 1954. The focal length available were quite extensive: from 3mm up to 75mm. The later 2in (or 50mm barrel) eyepieces (40mm, 45mm, 50mm, 55mm, 60mm, 65mm, 75mm) are often called "Pic du Midi" for they were mostly designed to be used on professional Planetary scopes at Pic du Midi. Of course many amateurs who own long focal length Cassegrains also use them. Clave eyepieces were availabe in two different barrel size 27mm/50mm (French barrels) and the (now) classical 1.25in/2in US barrels.

Loron Knowlen I'm glad you know that the Brandon eyepieces are the best for lunar and planetary observing but the Abbe orthos from University take a close second and they are much less.

Nice eyepiece review by Cloudy Nights (Astronomics)
Link: http://www.cloudynights.com/documents/planetaryeyepieces.pdf

I have used Zeiss, Clave, TeleVue, RKEs but the eyepieces I love the best are
the oculars known as the Brandons for my lunar and planetary observing. Brandon
is a brand name of VernonScope, and is applied to a variety of products,
including a well-established line of eyepieces. Several of the short- to medium
focal-length Brandon eyepieces are advertised as orthoscopics, yet they appear
upon disassembly to resemble Plossls. They use four lenses in an unsymmetrical
duplet formulation designed by Chester Brandon, one of the designers of the
top-secret Norden bombsight, which played an important role in World War II.

Brandon eyepieces are a popular choice of professional astronomers worldwide.
VernonScope estimates that over one million Brandons in various incarnations and
focal lengths have been produced since their introduction in the early 1940s.
Designed for medium to high power use with any telescope at focal ratios down to
f/4, they are very sharp at the center (although somewhat less so at the edges)
and ideally suited to lunar, planetary, star cluster, and binary star observing.
They have excellent color correction and very low astigmatism, with very minor
field curvature and ghosting. They are fully coated, but not multicoated, in
order to reduce a phenomenon known as "narrow angle light scatter" that is
sometimes seen in multicoated optics. This scatter shows as a loss of contrast
and subtle details within bright objects such as Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. It
also shows as a significant difference in the background darkness immediately
surrounding a bright object, which is especially important for double-star
observing. Brandons are accordingly noted for their exceptional contrast and
extremely dark background, two reasons why Questar has been using them in their
ultra-premium Maksutov-Cassegrain scopes since 1971. They have moderately wide
apparent fields of view, of about 45°.

Brandons are threaded for Vernonscope filters only. The use of standard
eyepiece color or nebula filters requires adapter #3405. They have rubber
eyecups that roll down for eyeglass use, although their eye relief is quite
short in the shorter focal lengths. Brandons are the sharpest design currently
available in a 1.25" barrel size for eyepiece projection photography. However
from time to time I do enjoy using the TeleVue plossls as well.

Carlos you are right on the money