I am not the most experienced Sabatier owner on this forum, but as a newbie to the NOS Nogent's, I can attest to the current purchasing experience if you are interested in one available from The Best Things as has been recommended above.
Firstly, service and shipping speed from TBT is excellent; my order shipped within hours of placing it, they answered my questions very graciously, and it arrived well packaged. A very good, small-business experience.
Secondly, the modern Ti-Sabatier's ground from pre-WWII forged carbon blanks are notorious for quality control problems. This may not be 100% the manufacturers fault, as I hear that the blanks are pretty rough and difficult to salvage, but in my experience these problems are very real. The grind of my Nogent paring knife is 'random' to say the least, and needed quite a lot of work reprofiling, thinning, refinishing, and establishing a bevel out of the box before it was useable. These are project knives, and as long as you recognize this before purchasing, you won't be disappointed. On the smaller knives, if you are an experienced sharpener and are interested in the project, fixing these issues can be an interesting learning experience. On a larger blade, like a chef's knife, I would suggest budgeting from the outset to outsource the work to someone like Dave Martell or Epicurean Edge - who I believe have experience with these knives - or someone similar who has the experience and power equipment to properly re-grind and potentially straighten the blade. It is worth it, and you will be much happier with the knife at the end of the day. It still won't cut like a properly ground Japanese knife, but it will be much more useable than you find it out of the box.
The steel is also very reactive; more so than even my Shirogami #2 Masakage Yuki petty, and much more so than my Aogami Super gyuto. It can discolour, smell, and give a metallic flavor to food, but it does take on a beautiful patina fairly quickly, and this does help.
Now the plus-sides. I cannot attest to the larger knives, but from what I read they share this feature; my Sabatier Nogent parer is one of the best knives I have used in regards to blade shape and handle ergonomics. It reminds me in a way of the old British cars I have driven; they were made in a time before 'ergonomics' was a science, but still manage to be way more comfortable in terms of driving position and control placement than any of the modern vehicles I have been in. As soon as you use one, you understand why these NOS Sabatier's receive the hype that they do; they're lovely to work with and hold. They also develop a comfortably 'well worn' look very quickly, which gives them a certain rustic charm.
Sharpening-wise, once the major work is over, the steel is one of the easiest I have ever sharpened and fairly forgiving of sharpening media. It isn't hardened very high, so it doesn't hold as fine or as acute of an edge for as long as a good Japanese carbon knife, but they still have better edge retention than the brand-name European stainless knives I have used. My paring knife still seems to hold a 15-dps edge just fine without folding too quickly, but on a beater chef's knife a slightly higher edge and periodic steeling on a smooth polished rod might be necessary to keep the edge in line. I finish my parer on a well broken-in Translucent Arkansas stone followed by a bare leather hanging barber's strop, which leaves an edge that will shave comfortably, but my attempts to take it much higher than this (0.5 micron and finer) have resulted in poor edge retention telling me that this (Maybe around the 10-12K level; it's hard to assign a specific grit to natural stones.) is about the max that this steel can hold at this HRC. You can use synthetic water stones, but I found that non-slurrying stones like diamond plates and Arkansas stones seem to leave the crispest edge on this steel.
Hopefully this helps... As I said, I do not have the experience with these knives that other members do, but this has been my limited experience for what it is worth. I love my Nogent, and would possibly buy another (Maybe a petty, or a chef's knife.) if I needed a less delicate, non-Japanese knife, but they certainly have their flaws and if I did buy another I would either wait until I had a belt grinder and a bit more experience or send it to someone who did.
- Steampunk
