Excellent brush. Well packaged! definitely recommended.

Excellent brush. Well packaged! definitely recommended.

Excellent brush. Well packaged! definitely recommended.

Excellent brush. Well packaged! definitely recommended.

These are and I will include the student line, in this praise, wonderful brushes all. Granted the dark wood and gleaming black of the handle does not have that much of an effect but it has some. And certainly the stainless steel or nickle plated brass does effect the performance of the brush, other brushes will rust where the hair or fibre meet the ferrule.These are a brush that you will use for a long time and any artist knows Da Vinci has mastered the way the hairs are layed out to cause a desired effect.California is part of the great American Car Culture and you will find many detail artists using DaVinci brushes, they are also a favorite of sign painters another rapidly fading craft. WE HAVE BECOME A disposable country, from razors to pens we use it and through it away.These brushes are part of a culture of building something well and building something that lasts. More than 30 years ago I went with a Mexican co-worker to a hardware store near his mothers home. I don't care what it was in aisle after aisle American Made Products at prices in some cases a bit more $ then in U.S., I asked him about and he replied, "that Mexicans buy things made in America because are quality, and they don't have the money to afford to replace it, it has to last for years".Some years after that I was going through a break up and she got custody of the ironing board, and I needed an ironing board because I had to press certain things, we had had an Americn built ironing board that we must have recovered 4 or 5 times but the frame was still steady and good. I went into several stores and could not find anything that was not woobly and made in Chine or China. My next visit into Mexico I went into a local Dept. Store Chain and was able to purchase a board Made in Chicago.I am not sure if that would be true today or not. Even my house painting brush's I go to our local paint store and purchase a brush recommended by the professionals there. I have many brushes that are 20 years old or more, I even have some made in Brazil that have held up very well in particular the watercolour and the hog hair brushes for Acrylic Paints.Paint brushes are tools, I have a 12" Mac Tools Adjustabile wrench I bought for nuts bigger than my normal wrenches range and that is at least 30-35 maybe older. And I have some Klein pliers and electrical tools I have from the 1960's they work alot better than me.I picked up about a dozen or so of these brushes to fill out some holes in my kit, even if I used this brush everyday with good care I know it will outlast me and maybe the next owner.Probably most people don't know that these have been made in Germany since 1890, I can remember it because the Germans finally established medical care for all residents in 1888. I think Spain or France one or both of them had done so first, I remember this because my Swedish born grandmother told me this.She thought it was criminal that we did not take care of the veterans that returned from WW1, she would go on to say how they treated veterans in European countries. Great Britain I know has done better by their veterans and it is nice that we have started to take care of ours, but we still lag behind other countries in taking care of all people.