Masters Stainless Bonsai Shears in Bamboo Box - designed by Robert Steven

[Masters Stainless Bonsai Shears in Bamboo Box - designed by Robert Steven ] that I got. Everything looked beautiful from the box on in, except that the scissors had been knocked loose in transit and scuffed a bit of the padding. However once in hand some things don’t seem right. First thing is the minute I handled the shears I found them to be very loose with unexpected play between the two halves around the connecting rivet, so much so that I have to use a lot of thumb and fingers effort to keep the blades scything evenly throughout a cutting motion. This undermines my intention buying the shears, which was a hope that they might be more ergonomically friendly for my arthritic thumb and hand than the standard designs. The pair of shears I received is quite a bit more effort to use than my Kiku and American bonsai shears. Second, upon a closer look I realized the cutting edges of the shears didn’t touch at rest or throughout a cut, except for at the very tips. Blades closed and looked at sidewise, there’s daylight all the way up between the cutting edges until the very end of the tips. The shears are very sharp, and on the assumption I might be misunderstanding functionality in action I used the shears on several toothpicks to feel how they cut, found myself pressing surprisingly hard to go through even toothpicks given the sharpness of the blades, and when I checked the toothpicks it seemed to me they were crushed before separating. So not exactly how I envision Bonsai shears needing to work. Possibly I am missing something special about the design of these, but if what I’ve described is just how the Robert Steven design Masters Shears are made, then I am not going to be able to use them.