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schanop

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Beside Jon, whom we all know, who carries Gesshin Hide awesome line of knives, I have recently ran into two other online shops. I hope Jon won't be hating me for posting this :guillotine:

One is handmadeknifejapan which seems to be operating from Japan.
Another is sakaijapaneseknives which seems to be operating from Sweden.

There are some similaritie and some duplicated images used on both sites. So may be the same people, may be not.

Anyway, Yamamoto-san himself, posted/liked a link to youtube video by handmadeknifejapan. There are some cool knives in there. Enjoy:

[video=youtube_share;SftJsXmugnY]http://youtu.be/SftJsXmugnY[/video]
 
Am I right in saying if you buy within the EU you pay the price with VAT added on? I try to buy in Europe when I can but the prices for the Swedish place seem rather steep
 
The prices in bold are the Swedish/EU prices including VAT. The smaller are for professionals that need a knife for their company/to make money (ie self-employed chefs, restaurants etc). It is without VAT. So yes, you are right.

Bottom line, the japanese site states $300 for a 240 gyuto and the swedish approximately $650.
We are used to being robbed.....
 
The japanese site shows yet another "Swedish stainless" gyuto. Nothing remarkable there. The Swedish site says their knife is semi-stainless. They look awful similar to me.
 
Yeah ok that clears it up thanks. I try to avoid paying import fees and everything but that price difference is crazy. I think a lot of European retailers can make their prices so high because they are basically feeding off people's uncertainty about buying from Japan or the States. I think a lot of people are scared of the idea so just pay higher prices in Europe when really buying from Japan or the States is easy
 
I actually know these two people... we are actually the official and exclusive dealers for north america (and have rights to sell worldwide). The guy in sweden is limited to sales within sweden and the guy based in Japan was supposedly only doing door to door sales excluding the US. Also, i also want to mention that the gesshin hide knives are slightly different with regard to fit and finish and a number of special and exclusive projects we work on with them.
 
They are different. I've handled several Hide knives recently and have 1, but I probably prefer the Gesshins of which I also have 1. They seem to have different geometry and can be a little more distinctive than the Hides. (I generally just like the Gesshin style) Plus, the knives available in each line are just different. For example, I haven't seen any Hide equivalent of my Gesshin 240mm gyuto in Ao#2.

I just compared the prices for my Hide (a petty bought in Japan last week). The price on the Swedish site is more than double what I paid, and the Japanese one is still quite a bit more but seems to have pretty conventional prices/mark ups for what we're used to. I got a special deal, though, and only wish I'd had more Yen to spend at the time!

This maker is also capable of making some really high-end award-winning stuff, with prices in the US $3-4000 range, although some of the extra embellishments on these (carvings, dragons, craftwork, etc) aren't always to my taste, even if they're plainly flawless and very impressive. World-class skills, though.

They're also a great family operation, seem very dedicated and perfectionist, and are really nice down-to-earth people to boot. Here's their own site: http://www.sakaihamono.com/
 
Shigefusa chukabocho........:fanning:

I'll need to add it to the wish list
 
Bernado is getting one through Maxim. How's konosuke #6?
 
Aye, it's pretty good. F+F on the blade wasn't as good as I was expecting, considering all the praise I'd heard for the Fujiyama line, and Konosuke in general. I picked it up from Chef's Armoury and it was a total impulse buy so I didn't inspect the knife as well as I perhaps should have.

Handle is pretty much perfect, spine is pretty fat at the heel with a solid taper; it's actually much thinner than the weight would suggest. The down sides are: the heel (on mine) is actually thinner than the tip which is a touch odd and ootb there was a huge wave in the edge about an inch after the heel. Honestly, it didn't even click until I was using it at work the next day and thought it felt a little funky on the board, when I had a look at it it became quite apparent why i was getting accordion cuts and what not. Didn't bother taking it back or complaining, only took about 5 minutes to fix and I'm happy now.

Steel sharpens up incredibly easy and it feels great in hand. Don't know if I'd buy another knife from Konosuke though. To be honest, I feel like a bit of a goose seeing as this is the first knife I've bought from an actual high street store in years and I missed all the issues. It's a great slicer, but I'd still recommend the Sugimoto as my go-to #6.

Cheers,
Josh
 
Thank Josh, for a short review. Konosuke #6 wowed me at the store too, but not enough to be brought home since Sugimoto #6 has already been there.

Back to Hide knives.

This could be Sara's next knife to be blogged about :bliss:
20090605_11192702.jpg
 
echerub said:
Hey, my fiancee might light that one too :)
Click to expand...

Yeeesh!.... Obviously, however, I think Hide & son had this sort of situation in mind when they designed this one.

Dave Martell said:
You'll try anything to get a new knife in the house. :razz:
Click to expand...

Not only that, I hear Len's currently in the market for a new home. Clearly his current place isn't big enough for his modest collection.

(Btw - got your msg, L. But been busy. Will reply.)
 
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