Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Pruning Shears: Felco vs. the Knock Off

Pruning shears are our main tools and last week I bought a couple of new pairs. Instead of choosing the classic, Swiss-made Felcos we usually buy (an old pair is on the right), I bought the knock off you see on the left, which were about a third of the price. We use and abuse pruning shears for hours every day, and I figured we should just go for the cheap ones and buy new shears more often, if necessary. After all, a brand new pair of knock off pruning shears should cut better than a beaten up old pair of the originals, right? 

To our surprise the old Felcos still cut dramatically better than the new set of knock offs that looked nearly identical, and when you're trimming branches for hours every day, that makes a huge difference. We'll be sticking with Felco shears from now on, despite the fact that they cost almost three times as much as the knock off - apparently there's more to their price than just the "Swiss-Made" stamp.  

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