The Handles Are The Pitch. They Are Also The Only Real Argument.

Everything Wilkinson Sword says about this tool comes back to one number. The bullets promise "850mm steel tubular handles" and "Long length handles to reduce bending or straining the back". The description says it again: "The Long handle length (850mm) allows a more upright stance and so reduces bending & fatigue when in use." There are soft grips in "PP+TPR", blades in a "carbon steel Non stick coated" finish, and a "full 10 year guarantee against faulty material and workmanship" behind the lot. But the handles are the pitch.

Which makes the review slice awkward reading. Of the eleven English-language cards Amazon features here, exactly two go into the handles in any detail, and they are the 4-star and the 3-star. The other nine are, broadly, delighted. Six of those nine are delighted about the blades.

That is not a scandal. It is just a useful thing to know before you buy a tool for its reach and assume the five-star wall has checked the reach for you.

850mm, Or 94cm? The Listing Gives Both And Explains Neither

Here is something odd, and we are going to leave it odd rather than guess our way out of it.

The listing title ends with the figures "94x17x4 cm". The bullets and the description both state the handles are 850mm, which is 85cm. The listing never says what the 94 measures, or how the two figures relate to one another. Both numbers are Wilkinson Sword's own, on the same page.

Then there is a third number, and it comes from a reviewer rather than the brand. Jan V. H. Luthman, four stars, put a tape over a pair: "The handles on my F…… shears are 99cm, but these Wilkinson shears are only 92-93cm." That is Luthman's measurement, reported as Luthman's, and we have no way to check it.

We are not going to invent a tidy explanation for how 850mm, 94cm and 92-93cm fit together, because none of the sources offers one and the neat-sounding version would be us making it up. What we can tell you is this: if the exact reach is the reason you are buying, the listing on its own will not settle it. Measure the tool when it arrives, while the returns window is still open.

If You Are Over Six Foot, Read The Four-Star Card First

Luthman's review is the most-voted card in this batch by a distance. Twelve people found it helpful, and the only other card here with any votes at all has one. It is also from July 2016. Amazon floats it near the top because readers found it useful, not because it is recent, and that is worth remembering before you read any of these thirteen as a report on current stock.

The purchase, Luthman says, was made partly on the strength of "the many comments about ‘extra long handles’". Plenty about the tool landed well. The blades were "satisfyingly sharp and cut cleanly". "They’re also relatively light in weight." The complaint is narrow and specific: the reach did not match the reputation, measured against a Swedish pair already in the shed, a brand Luthman leaves as a single initial. "Unfortunately, the handles are a full 6-7cm shorter than my Swedish F...... shears."

The blades came up short too, on the same comparison, and the reasoning is the sort of thing only someone with a lot of edging behind them would bother to write down: "long blades are much better at maintaining a straight line. Short blades wander off course too easily and leave wobbly edges."

Then the conclusion, which is the part that matters if you are shopping on height: "I’m afraid I’d find it difficult to recommend these to anyone much over 6ft tall, or with more than, say, 200 yards of borders to maintain." The flip side of that, in the same card, is a recommendation: they are "well-suited to women, or anyone else of modest stature, and for those having a garden with small beds and/or short borders".

That is one card, from one garden, ten years ago. Hold it loosely. But it is a specific, measured objection to the exact attribute this tool is sold on, twelve people thought it was worth flagging, and nothing else in the batch contradicts it.

The Second Complaint Is About Stiffness, Not Length

The three-star card is a different objection entirely, and the two are worth keeping apart. Ian howell has nothing to say about reach. The problem is what the shafts do under load: "Seem fairly sharp but the handles are too flimsy, it’s very easy to trap your thumbs because the handles almost come together when using mild force".

Look at the product shot and you can at least see the geometry being described. Two slim tubes, splayed open at the top and converging toward the head, with the grips inline at the ends and nothing sitting between them to stop that gap closing.

This is one reviewer out of thirteen, and no other card in the batch mentions flimsy handles, trapped thumbs, or the shafts closing up. So take it for what it is: a single data point, unrepeated here, against 2,329 lifetime ratings. But it is the kind of thing you only find out with the tool in your hands. If you have a heavy grip, or you are hacking at thick growth rather than trimming a tidy edge, it is worth a deliberate check in the first week while you can still send them back.

Sharp Out Of The Box, But Ask Again In Five Years

On the blades, the batch is close to unanimous. Five of the eleven English-language cards use the word "sharp" outright, eight of them mention the sharpness or the cut in some form, and not one of the thirteen calls the blades blunt. That includes both of the cards that grumble about the handles. The three-star literally opens with "Seem fairly sharp but".

Victor phillips: "Great to handle and very sharp so cuts easy". gregoir: "Sharp and easy to use. A competitive price and a quality product." Ms G.: "As expected and described. No problem. Sharp easy to use good length." The listing claims "High quality carbon steel Non stick coated blades", and nothing in these reviews argues with it.

The open question is how long that edge lasts, and one buyer asks it out loud. Keith Battersby gave five stars and still hedged the last word: "Hope they keep their edge." Nothing in this batch answers that, because none of these cards is a long-term report, and a five-star review written the week the parcel arrived cannot tell you about season four.

Wilkinson Sword's own answer is the "full 10 year guarantee against faulty material and workmanship" the description promises. Read that wording before you lean on it. Material and workmanship is not the same thing as edge retention, and a blade that has simply gone dull after five seasons of edging is not obviously a faulty one. It is a good guarantee against a snapped shaft or a head that works loose. It is not a sharpening service.

Only One Card Ties The Long Handles To Your Back, And It Is Canadian

This is the claim most people are actually buying: edge the lawn without kneeling. The listing states it plainly in the bullets, "Long length handles to reduce bending or straining the back", and then makes the same point again in the description.

In the featured reviews, the support for it is thinner than you would expect. Exactly one card connects the handles to your back, and it is from Canada. mmgsch, five stars: "Ease of use while in standing position so not hard on your back". A Canadian lawn is not a UK one, though a bad back travels well enough. The same card makes a second point that transfers cleanly to any garden with borders: "Other edge trimmers blow the grass into your garden and then grass takes hold and now you need to do more weeding. This eliminates that".

The rest of the positive testimony on the headline feature is brief to the point of terse. Ms G., in the UK, gives it two words inside a five-star card: "good length". Jeff Edwards, in Australia, titles a five-star review "Great cutting long handled shears" but the body never returns to the handles at all: "I liked the cutting quality and ease of use". So the case for the reach, in the cards Amazon has chosen to show you, is one Canadian sentence, two British words and an Australian headline.

None of which means the handles do not work. Short five-star reviews are short because the buyer is happy and busy, not because the tool disappointed them, and 2,329 ratings averaging 4.6 is a lot of quiet satisfaction. But if you came to this listing hoping the reviews would tell you whether 850mm is enough for your height, they will not. They will tell you it was enough for Ms G.

Matching Long Handled Edging Shears To Your Lawn Edges

Strip out the noise and the shape of this is fairly clear.

These suit you if your borders run short to middling, you are not especially tall, and the job you want done is a crisp vertical edge along a bed without kneeling to get it. Ms G.'s "good length" and mmgsch's standing-up card are the closest this batch comes to endorsing exactly that, though neither says a word about the size of their garden, and a 4.6 average across 2,329 ratings suggests most buyers end up satisfied. The soft grips are rated by the listing to work "even with gloves", which in a British spring is less of a footnote than it sounds.

Think harder if you are well over six foot, if you have a serious amount of edging to do (Luthman's threshold was "more than, say, 200 yards of borders"), or if you grip hard enough that Ian howell's flimsy-handle complaint would land. In those cases, measure first, compare against whatever is already hanging in your shed, and keep the box.

One card worth reading with its passport in view: bwoz, five stars, is in the United States, keeping "a clean edge between a rock garden and lawn" where "The turf is a mix of Bermuda and zoysia grasses". Those are warm-season grasses you will not be cutting in Surrey. The verdict is encouraging, "These cut a crisp clean edge and it looks great", but a Bermuda lawn in July is a different animal from a soggy ryegrass edge in October, and a blade that sails through one has not been asked the same question by the other.

For UK gardens, the case is simple enough. Carbon steel blades that five of these cards call sharp and none call blunt, a ten year guarantee on materials and workmanship, grips that work in gloves, and 850mm of handle the listing says will keep you off your knees. At 4.6 stars from 2,329 ratings, most buyers are clearly happy with what arrived. The one thing these thirteen cards cannot settle is whether that reach suits your height, because exactly one of them raises it and that card is a decade old. Check today's price on Amazon, then measure your own reach before you commit.