Major Mizuno Increase

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Customfan

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 5, 2011
Messages
1,600
Reaction score
113
Did anyone happen to catch the Mizuno Tanrejo increase? Starting in June. :bigeek:

Honyaki white 240mm Gyuto went up I believe from $720 to $954... so did blue #2 (DX) big time to $1,350

Was it across the board?

Does anyone know if the Hontaren, Hon Kasumi, etc. series increased as well?
 
Did anyone happen to catch the Mizuno Tanrejo increase? Starting in June. :bigeek:

Honyaki white 240mm Gyuto went up I believe from $720 to $954... so did blue #2 (DX) big time to $1,350

Was it across the board?

Does anyone know if the Hontaren, Hon Kasumi, etc. series increased as well?

It seems like it definitely hit most of the gyuto as everything except the suminagashi and maybe the stainless gyuto are now much more expensive. The only thing I can remember other than gyuto are the petty and swedish sujihiki which are roughly the same price if not the same. But, I remember the 300mm hontanren gyuto being around $400 last I checked and now it's over $600.
 
Thats without any of the fancy stuff.... octagonal, ebonywood handles, etc.
 
Steel prices have gone up the past few years. What most of you guys don't take into account is that most makers do not buy steel weekly or monthly. When they buy they buy a lot. Can last a few months or even years depending on demand.

So if steel prices went up last year and just now seeing price increase probably because they had to purchase a new stockpile of steel. You were paying prices that are years back and just now caught up.

Also simple supply and demand. Demand is high now.

From the business aspect, remember muzuno goes through sub contractors who have probably had one of the above happen. So their price increases to mizuno thus increasing more to you if they are still trying to keep the same margins
 
Now the white#2 Mizuno is almost the double of Hiromoto white #2....I wonder if we will see a similar price hike with other makers.
 
Steel prices have gone up the past few years. What most of you guys don't take into account is that most makers do not buy steel weekly or monthly. When they buy they buy a lot. Can last a few months or even years depending on demand.

So if steel prices went up last year and just now seeing price increase probably because they had to purchase a new stockpile of steel. You were paying prices that are years back and just now caught up.

Also simple supply and demand. Demand is high now.

From the business aspect, remember muzuno goes through sub contractors who have probably had one of the above happen. So their price increases to mizuno thus increasing more to you if they are still trying to keep the same margins

This makes sense. From my talks with Iwahara-san, I've noticed that his prices from JCK were lower than the direct prices from Mizuno Tanrenjo's website. He mentioned that this wasn't a mistake, but maybe now he has run out of stock on some knives and is raising the prices to reflect the new buying prices.
 
Now the white#2 Mizuno is almost the double of Hiromoto white #2....I wonder if we will see a similar price hike with other makers.

should have gotten that 270 blue 2 at the old prices LOL zomg. But i love my Denka so i guess I don't need blue LOL. Hiromoto white 2 is good balance, not chippy but hard enough.
 
Last week when i free up some funds I started looking at the Mizuno white #2 honyaki that I have been eyeing forever.

Totally shocked by the new price :scared4:
 
Last week when i free up some funds I started looking at the Mizuno white #2 honyaki that I have been eyeing forever.

Totally shocked by the new price :scared4:

i say go blue 2 and be done with it LOL.
 
Now the white#2 Mizuno is almost the double of Hiromoto white #2....I wonder if we will see a similar price hike with other makers.

forgot to remention, hiromoto white #2 are great value for the steel you get, the grind is consistent but slightly thicker behind the edge than other honyaki offering esp if you go with the 270mm but i love the profile and the steel itself.
 
Now the white#2 Mizuno is almost the double of Hiromoto white #2....I wonder if we will see a similar price hike with other makers.

It only makes sense, if its a materials availability related hike. Interesting though is that it was upwards of 25%.

Love my other "H" but there is still something about Mizuno that does it for me :D
 
I hope Koki Iwahara doesn't mind my saying this. He mentioned in a recent email with me that he has had to increase the prices of new stock knives starting from June 1st of this year. This is due to several factors including the increase in metal and labor prices that Osaka Joe mentioned. So, knives JCK has from the old stock will be sold at old prices, but once those stocks run out, the new price will kick in on different lines most likely.
 
It's not just mizuno it's across the board! The golden age for Japanese knives is over. Happy I got all mine when I did because there is no way I could afford them now and probably would never buy them at today's prices. Obviously it's supply driven because of popularity but looking at knives that in 2012 or 2013 were half price of what today's prices are it's kinda nutty.
 
It's not just mizuno it's across the board! The golden age for Japanese knives is over. Happy I got all mine when I did because there is no way I could afford them now and probably would never buy them at today's prices. Obviously it's supply driven because of popularity but looking at knives that in 2012 or 2013 were half price of what today's prices are it's kinda nutty.

Nutty indeed but perhaps a long time coming.
 
It's not just mizuno it's across the board! The golden age for Japanese knives is over. Happy I got all mine when I did because there is no way I could afford them now and probably would never buy them at today's prices. Obviously it's supply driven because of popularity but looking at knives that in 2012 or 2013 were half price of what today's prices are it's kinda nutty.

I wouldn't say over I'd say the time of wholesalers ripping off the craftsmen is over. Too long have they forced craftsmen to work hard for little but now they are finally getting the respect and price increases they deserve. Golden age has just started. Now you'll start to see the ones who make good quality knives start to Shine and last.
 
I wouldn't say over I'd say the time of wholesalers ripping off the craftsmen is over. Too long have they forced craftsmen to work hard for little but now they are finally getting the respect and price increases they deserve. Golden age has just started. Now you'll start to see the ones who make good quality knives start to Shine and last.

Interesting? Can you provide any examples of this logic? Years and years ago one could contact direct knife makers and custom order knives now we have an almost channel approach. Retailers mark up in USA is typically 100 percent. Some more some less.
 
Interesting? Can you provide any examples of this logic? Years and years ago one could contact direct knife makers and custom order knives now we have an almost channel approach. Retailers mark up in USA is typically 100 percent. Some more some less.

actually, in most of japan, years and years ago, it was even more difficult to contact craftsmen directly... a much smaller percentage of them were open to the idea of this. The wholesales had even more power back then, and the way of doing business for knifemaking in japan has long been a system in which the wholesalers have the most power. Its pretty well know in Japan. When you were starting to see makers open up some years back... that was the beginning of this change. What i see in Japan supports what Joe said 100%.
 
Not logic it's the business structure. Jon said it better than I could. Take his word or mine. We both work in the industry and he's been at it for awhile now. I'm in Sakai 2 or 3 times a week training now. So I have my eyes open and eat to the ground. A lot of those big names too are actually not makers. You get a lot of people misunderstanding the wholesalers as makers by their marketing and business structure.
 
Given that one could buy a piece of shirogami. probably big enough for a small sword. retail . in europe. for 30 bucks. (https://www.dictum.com/de/materiali...r-papierstahl-aus-japan?ftr=_11__98.5_1_12_12)

...and that I wouldn't assume a wholesale customer inside japan would have to pay even a fraction of that price ...

...can materials price really be that significant in the equation, unless we are talking some really low yield knives (eg, you assume 3 out of 4 blades will be complete, unsalvageable scrap)?
 
Congratulations you just bought yourself a piece of steel. Now what are you going to do with it?? Why buy a Mona lisa if I can buy a blank canvas paint and a brush?

Now factor the hours spent forging, heat treating, and sharpening. Then factor the cost of tools involved and bills to pay. Believe me this is not easy work and is exhausting but takes years of learning the trade to make anything decent.

Now you have a blade. Factor cost of engraving, handle materials and cost of putting it on. Now factor cost of box.

Now you haven't even made any money off it yet. Now factor the cost for you to turn a slight profit and make it worth your while.

This is considering you work alone and don't have staff wages to pay. Or aren't charging a premium since you are not a master craftsmen and can expect to charge accordingly.

If craftsmen are just scraping by and not really making any money that's how you kill a craft. They won't invest anytime in the next generation and what has happened to a lot of knife families in Japan.

Going back to the previous page of what Jon clearly said. Think of your now finished product and how much you'd sell it for. Well you're the maker and anything you sell is a direct sale. Hasn't even gone to a seller yet.
 
Yeah... material cost increases are just a small part of this... there is much more going on with regard to the increase in price. For what its worth, material cost is rarely the largest part of the cost of a knife... its is often dwarfed by labor cost (i.e. time spent and skill level/reputation of the cratfsmen working on the item).
 
Perhaps someone can for the sake of understanding can provide a rudimentary flow chart of costs from forging to retail purchase. So we can understand the recent insane increase of costs? It's one thing to talk about and it's another to back the talk up with examples. It's now like the cost of gas going from 2.50 to 5.00 a gallon with the price of the crude remaining the same. I for one would like to know the ecomomic side of this, not just trying to shake the tree, as these increases have kept me from buying anything like I used to.
 
the gist of it is rather simple... relative to the wholesalers, the salaries of the craftsmen were stagnant for years and the wage disparity grew significantly. This is a reflection of the craftsmen's wages moving up instead of being relatively stagnant as they have been for many years (well before you began buying japanese knives).
 
the gist of it is rather simple... relative to the wholesalers, the salaries of the craftsmen were stagnant for years and the wage disparity grew significantly. This is a reflection of the craftsmen's wages moving up instead of being relatively stagnant as they have been for many years (well before you began buying japanese knives).

Interesting Jon.
Why is it then, the direct to the public knife houses are relatively unchanged and the channel knives have increased massively. Moritaka and Fujiwara knives are examples of this. I just saw a konosuke KU white 2 knife with a chestnut handle being sold at 550 bucks! Twice as much as a Fujiyama!
 
neither of them are in major knife making regions effected by this change... you will see this change in places with blacksmith and sharpener associations like sakai, seki, sanjo, and echizen. As i mentioned before, material costs are not really the big factor... wages for the craftsmen are. The direct to consumer places have control over what they get paid, and are marking up their knives as they would if they were a wholesaler too. Craftsmen in places like sakai do not have the same level of control over pricing. As the craftsmen raise prices, that gets passed along to the wholesalers (for those who use them... and somtimes multiple wholesalers in some cases), and then on to the consumer.

In essence, your comparison is like saying you bought a table from a guy who makes tables for such and such a price, and his price hasnt changed as much as buying from crate and barrell, which is effected by changes in minimim wages, livabale wages required, tax changes, rent changes, supplier price increases, etc., much more than that woodworker you bought from. In this example (when compared to the knife world), the supplier was selling at roughly the same price to crate and barrell for many years, but crate and barrell continued to raise priced. Now the supplier is raising prices again, in a much more significant way (imagine guys making $8 per hour now making $15-16 per hour for their work making the items), and that cost is getting passed along to the consumer at the end of the day. Does that make more sense of it?
 
I get this is a very specialized industry with fewer and fewer elder tradesman, but I seriously doubt that their pay has risen 50 percent in a few years.
 
I get this is a very specialized industry with fewer and fewer elder tradesman, but I seriously doubt that their pay has risen 50 percent in a few years.

i think you're missing the point of what i was saying here... it was an example... not a specific figure
 
I get this is a very specialized industry with fewer and fewer elder tradesman, but I seriously doubt that their pay has risen 50 percent in a few years.

i live in Japan and sometimes have chances to see knife making cities. There are always people talking about how tonya (maybe what you call wholesaler) have fancy houses, fancy cars, fancy offices, and make lots of money, but craftsmen suffer. Many people are trying to make this more equal. In tradition, tonya had a job to take care of and support craftsmen... they deal with customers, help organize, and keep craftsmen busy with work, and craftsmen produce for them. In good times, they order a lot, and in bad times they still try to order to make sure everyone can survive together. They used to spend money to help bring young craftsmen and make sure everyone has good training. In more recent times, tonya have continued to make a lot of money, but craftsmen are not being taken care of. Only recently craftsmen are starting to ask for more. They invest in future. Some tonya are doing same, but not all. In sakai, it is easy to see. In sanjo still you can see. In seki it is hard to see. For example, in Sakai, you can see new Jikko Hamono or Konosuke workshop and president house, but also how craftsmen live. Is very different.
 
Back
Top