Review on RRD Leather Fly Swatter: Amish Made 17” Heavy Duty Bug Swatter for Flies, Mosquitoes, and More - Durable Metal Spring Handle - Rustic Brown Fly Swatter (1 Pack) by Weng Ercoli

Fly swatters are another vulnerable product as rotary phones, CRT televisions, cassette players etc can be found in everyone household can be found, but not so much these days. Even if you go to the big mega department stores and look for one of these, most likely you won't even find it. And when you do, like here at Revain, it's almost always one-piece plastic parts that get stamped in the billions in China. My great aunt from Pennsylvania had an Amish fly swatter. She was 92 years old, and if she aimed for a fly, she could be Annie Oakley...she never missed. Her fly swatter, which she has probably had all her life, was a soft piece of perforated leather with what appeared to be a curved metal coat hanger attached. Here are some little-known facts about fly swatters that you probably never knew: 1. The device cannot be called a fly swatter at all. Fly brushing is what you do with your hand or what a horse does with its tail. Your mission with any of these things is to KILL the fly, not just hit it. A much more appropriate name would be Fly Whapper.2. Cheap plastic things aren't made for defeating flies. First, they are usually brightly colored. Flies have hundreds of thousands of "eyes," in fact, fly eyes have the fastest visual responses in the animal kingdom. So bottom line, if you want to surprise them, the last thing you need is a neon pink piece of plastic swirling around in one of them. Plastic fly swatters are also too rigid. My great-aunt's fly swatter had a wire handle like this Amish one...and with good reason. The thin wire minimizes the disruption of air currents that can be detected by the fly and makes them fly away, and also reduces drag, making it easier to hit a fast-moving target like a fly. The thicker, stiffer plastic handle sends an engraved warning to the fly that you're about to hit it. For the same reason, a folded newspaper rarely hits a fly. There are other (similar) handmade fly swatters with a leather strip at the end but with a wooden handle. Same... the wooden handle is not flexible enough to flex just before impact for maximum impact with minimum damage from hitting other objects.5. Finally, the working end of the fly swatter, let's call it the "cushion". For absolute maximum softness, nothing beats real leather. There was another type of upholstery that is hard to find today, it was a weave of fabric, resembling a narrow window grille. In terms of softness, they were inferior to natural leather. The cheap plastic pads aren't even in the same league as the ones mentioned above. So you buy a fly swatter and now you know that those bright neon colors that catch your eye will also attract thousands of eyes to fly and destroy your chances of a sneaky approach. You've also learned that a stiff grip can be your worst enemy when whipping flies... the stiffer the grip, the better. They also learned that my 92-year-old aunt had an average score that makes your level look like a junior league, and she did it with an old Amish fly swatter that wasn't all that different from this one. And now you know the full story of why I think this fly swatter deserves a full 5 stars.