Most you'd ever spend on a paring knife?

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Godslayer

Godslayer

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So a lot of us spend major coin $500, $1000, $2000+ on high end Gyutos and Yanagibas but whats the most you would ever pay for the humble paring knife? For arguments sake, lets say around 3 inches 80mms.

I'm going to say $300 mainly because that's what my most expensive one is worth.
 
The most I've spent is around $130 for a Harner, I was really tempted by a Musk Ox & Damascus pairer that Bill's Daughter Jessica Burke brought to the Sydney knife show last year.
 
Von blewitt said:
The most I've spent is around $130 for a Harner, I was really tempted by a Musk Ox & Damascus pairer that Bill's Daughter Jessica Burke brought to the Sydney knife show last year.
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I saw that, they were amazing, and i put the Harner order in today lol.
 
If I could somehow get a Kitaeji Paring 100 - 110mm with a thin profile at the tip. I would pay 600~.
 
$50...it's a paring knife. I have a couple of old Henckels for stainless and a Sab carbon for when it doesn't matter. IMO, these shapes are the best and with zero board contact the steels are fine.

OK, if I splurged on a parer it would definitely be a Del.
 
I've dropped a hundred and change on parers from Del, Butch, Randy and like them all. Also have a couple Wustie, Shun and Henks around. Can't stand the Vnox or other cheap ones.
 
Maybe $50-$75 max. Paring knives get used too often in my house as a general-purpose knife for things like opening packages. They get abused and sharpened a lot, so it's not a knife I'd want to invest heavily in.

I'm probably close to buying another one. We've been using two Wusthof Classic parers for many years, and they've been sharpened so much that the blade profiles are getting weird, because of that stupid bolster. They'll be retired out of the kitchen soon as dedicated box cutters. The next parer won't have a bolster.
 
i got a watanabe for a little over 100 and its awesome but i never use it. paring knife gets very little use since i carry a pocket folding paring knife (al mar eagle) :D
 
I spent more than I thought I ever would on a petty but it feel like it was engineered specifically for my hand and I haven't touched another since.
 
Godslayer said:
So a lot of us spend major coin $500, $1000, $2000+ on high end Gyutos and Yanagibas but whats the most you would ever pay for the humble paring knife? For arguments sake, lets say around 3 inches 80mms.

I'm going to say $300 mainly because that's what my most expensive one is worth.
Click to expand...

Maybe $50. I rarely use a paring, for smaller tasks my petty is sufficient. For petty knives I personally wouldn't spend more than $150—mine get used and abused. For me, money's better spent on gyutos, deba, yanagiba, suji, etc.
 
$0 as I don't use a paring knife. I am wondering the same thing as StonedEdge, do small petties count. Ever since getting a 120mm petty I no longer use a paring knife. I mean, it has been over two years since taking one out of the drawer.
 
K813zra said:
$0 as I don't use a paring knife. I am wondering the same thing as StonedEdge, do small petties count. Ever since getting a 120mm petty I no longer use a paring knife. I mean, it has been over two years since taking one out of the drawer.
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I think the petty counts. Some of them are profiled for work on a board but some work extremely well in hand. The line between paring and petty has always been a little blurry to me.
 
tripleq said:
I think the petty counts. Some of them are profiled for work on a board but some work extremely well in hand. The line between paring and petty has always been a little blurry to me.
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In that case maybe around $100 at the top end. I mean, it is a knife I use about 2-5% of the time. I use my gyuto the rest of the time.
 
Best pairing knife: Paraplui A Le'Epreuve Perfect Parer (Carbon Steel) by Thérias et l'Econome. 38 bucks.
 
I have some little nogent and basic opined paring knife. I though I will be forever happy with these 10€ knives. But someday, I was gifted/bribed by Robin Dalman one of his parer. I am super happy with it and I would recommend every one to get a quality parer. Things are not the same with it.
 
I use a Herder for peeling, and a petty when any board contact is involved. The petties get a lot of use, have a small contact area with the board, are often sharpened and have an accordingly short life. A fortiori for parers I guess, or am I missing some point here?
 
I should have added that a good peeler has an inverted geometry: right face flat, left one convexed, edge off-centered to the right. This is why common petties and parers are such poor peelers.
 
150 For a damascus paring knife. I need to get some more smaller knives in my collection
 
One of the early J-knives I bought was a Moritaka Supreme (AS) Petty 150 for about $120 US. The knife is fine, but I realized I don't really like using a petty...prefer bigger knives generally, or knives with more knuckle clearance (like a nakiri). So I don't see myself spending more in the petty category.

Cheers,
Blair
 
I have 3 or 4 Carters I'm pretty sure I paid over a $100 each for but that was a number of years ago. My all time favorite paring knife is one of those Carters. Use it everyday so I think the price was not unreasonable.
 
The Toyama 80mm paring/petty knife has been excellent. Has a higher heat treat than usual and takes an incredible polish.. I use it for anything I can think of that needs a small knife. Mostly using it to open food packaging with precision, trimming and coring vegetables with agility, cutting mushrooms too cause it has a remarkably high heel and profile. I love this unique little knife..
 
Okay, so all this discussion has me thinking about a new knife, of course. :)

Quick question: For those of you who use a paring knife for in-hand use, especially things like peeling veg and fruit, does the exposed heel of a Japanese-style small knife bother you? I mean compared to Western-style parers that often have a full-length bolster. Which I hate, because it's harder to sharpen, but it started me thinking about that sharp heel point.

Do you ease the heel corner so it isn't too sharp, or just make sure to keep your thumb away from it when doing "backwards" in-hand peeling?
 
Ooops, just realized that I responded about a petty, not a paring knife.

I bought one J-knife parer...it was the Masakage Kumo 75...useful little guy for in-hand stuff, peeling, etc. and looks cool too. Got it on sale for $130 US. Don't think I'd want to pay more than that for a paring knife.

The knife looks like this: https://knifewear.com/collections/masakage-kumo/products/masakage-kumo-petty-75mm

Cheers,
Blair
 
Paraffin said:
Okay, so all this discussion has me thinking about a new knife, of course. :)

Quick question: For those of you who use a paring knife for in-hand use, especially things like peeling veg and fruit, does the exposed heel of a Japanese-style small knife bother you? I mean compared to Western-style parers that often have a full-length bolster. Which I hate, because it's harder to sharpen, but it started me thinking about that sharp heel point.

Do you ease the heel corner so it isn't too sharp, or just make sure to keep your thumb away from it when doing "backwards" in-hand peeling?
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That is a good question and I had to think about it a bit. For myself personally when I made the transition to Japanese knives it was never an issue. When paring I always made an effort to protect my fingers so it just kind of happened without much thought. You may find the same for yourself so now you have to get a new knife and try it, right? ;)
 
Benuser said:
I should have added that a good peeler has an inverted geometry: right face flat, left one convexed, edge off-centered to the right. This is why common petties and parers are such poor peelers.
Click to expand...

This has me thinking that I should try a lefty paring knife or just ask which blades would you recommend for in hand peeling?
 
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