TAKE2 Nutcracker

I have to admit, I saw this nut cracker featured on a show and I have wanted it ever since. Unfortunately, it was always too expensive. When I saw it go down to under $20, I decided it would be a great Christmas present to myself from my mom. (I do her shopping for her) The first surprise was how small it is. I know the dimensions are listed, but I guess I just didn't pay too much attention to it. From the picture, I was thinking it would be as tall as a wooden nutcracker. Like I said.....all in my head, had nothing to do with the dimensions listed! When I opened it and saw the size, I was skeptical about how well it would work. Luckily, I just "happened" to also get a small bag of nuts for Christmas. My family laughed at me, saying there was no way this thing would work. I grabbed a walnut, put it in the base, held my fingers down over the two tabs, pulled the top, and let it go.....and it worked! I love it. It's a fun, entertaining way to crack open nuts. Does it work better than a $2 hand held nutcracker? Enough to warrant an $18 difference? No, probably not, but it's a lot more fun to use!

Pros: Super cute, powerful, fun to use. Cons: Uncertain results - might barely crack the nut or might smash it to bits. Odd: Ad says German made but it came in a plastic bag with a Made in China sticker. I don't know if the packaging was original. Bottom line: Happy with purchase but not as happy as hoped.

It worked well for about 10 times.It was able to crack open, Pecan nuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, almonds and hazel nuts from a bag of mixed nuts i purchased, until about the tenth nut, the hazel nuts were just swirling around this contraption. I tried to use it on an almond nut thinking that it's less round and should crack, low and behold it refused to crack.Those nuts as well as this cracker is imported. I live in the tropics and the majority of those nuts are not native to where i am so i needed a nut cracker. I was so impressed when I learnt about this cracker, and though I found it a bit pricey I still bought it when I found it on Amazon. I'm really disappointed with a 3/4 bag full of mixed nuts remaining to crack. Oh BTW I remember it took forever to arrive. I would not recommend - its a waste of good money!!

Not very efficient on the hazelnuts I tried to crack. Took several tries to get the job done. The pecans worked better, but still took several attempts to actually get the nut out of the shell. Don't waste your money.

Quite loud, and a bit unwieldy. Bought for a fun Christmas gift, and it was a hit. Not really practical though.

Novelty nut cracker that comes down with too much force. Used it to crack a bunch of walnuts but it either didn't crack the nuts or crushed them too much. Not feasible to get whole nuts using this thing but was cute and fun to experiment with. Would not recommend for use crushing lots of walnuts.

Not sure it is worth the $$

As advertised OVER PRICED $$$$$$