If I wanted to produce a commercial to advertise Stark Tefillin Battim I couldn’t ask for more than what happened last night in my office.
I have a very good customer who purchased a set of tefillin from Eretz Yisroel. He found something for a bit less money than what I was showing him. Since he ordered them without seeing them, there was no way he could properly compare them to what I had shown him. Anyway, his son banged the shel rosh and he brought it to me for repair. He happened to come at the same moment that my battim macher (battim repair expert) was in my office. I showed him the dent and he quietly said to me, “These battim aren’t from you are they?” I replied that indeed they were not. He added, “Yeah, I could see that right away…” I cannot stress enough that to the untrained eye Starek battim may look the same as something which sells for $50 or $100 less, but once you start working with battim the difference becomes more clear every day. I want to stress that I am not saying that the battim that he bought are cheap battim, rather, if you are looking to purchase tefillin battim and you want them to be beautiful, strong, mehudar in halachah, and last a lifetime, than you need to be very clear about which tefillin battim you are using.