Toyama Bloomery Iron Gyuto
Length: 245mm
Height: 52mm
Thickness: 3mm
Weight: 200g
Steel: 130WCrV5/500 year old french anchor from bloomery iron
Handle: Chestnut/Horn
This is a perfect example of “Things I don’t deserve!” After making a post on here a while back asking people what knives I should add to my Japanese collection, a member reached out to me offering to sell me what was BY FAR the most difficult to attain knife on the list, this 240 bloomery iron Toyama (and for an unbelievably fair price too). Needless to say I graciously accepted and he has a pocket full of money, a new bar board and a little something extra that is currently on the way which I won’t spoil his surprise of here. To say I am beyond grateful for all the amazing people on this forum is an understatement. You guys are amazing and as such I want to do my best to tell you all about this knife so it’s not such a mystery piece and if you have the opportunity to get one one day, you’ll know what you’re getting!
As I sit here typing this I’m looking at the knife beside me and you can feel how special this piece is. The amount of activity going on in the cladding is wild. A beautifully classic Japanese profile and from what I can see visually, the geometry appears to be identical to how everyone else describes their Toyama’s. So I can only assume it performs just as incredibly as the rest of the knives. To go back to the cladding for a minute, my favourite part are these flowing rivers of tiny dark little pits. They’re more random on the upper parts of the cladding and then as the geometry changes closer to the edge you get this tight little line along the bottom edge of the cladding. Really beautiful. Overall, this knife oozes character and history.
Now unfortunately, it’s not all roses and chocolate covered strippers here. There are some things with the knife that I am extremely shocked by. And I want to preface this next part by saying this DOES NOT change how I feel about this knife. I am incredibly grateful to the last owner for giving me such a special piece and I absolutely love it.
However, for the more cosmetically minded collectors there are some serious flaws you should be aware of. First is the finish of the knife. I have heard that Toyama’s are rough but this is the single worst finished knife I’ve ever held. I sent pictures to other people and talked to one other person who owns a bloomery Toyama and the consensus was:
“Mine is terrible too”
“Send it back”
“That is unacceptable for a knife that costs so much”
I’m no fit and finish slut so these things really don’t bother me, I’m just happy to own such a special piece. But I will admit I find it strange that such a special piece would be finished so poorly. As a maker myself, I know that when I take on a special project, it gets an extra level of scrutiny because it’s so… special?! I dunno, like you don’t go to the butcher, splurge on the finest rib eyes they have and then cook them to a careless ‘well done’, right? Now I don’t know if the finishing on this knife was done by Toyama or JNS and I really don’t care because my goal isn’t to point fingers, it’s just to let you now that if you have an opportunity to purchase one of these, you should know what to expect. For what it is, and the price, it is likely not what you are expecting. I did my best to capture some of the scratches but I can say there are a tremendous amount of perpendicular grinding scratches still left at the tip, and a lot of diagonal scratches on the side, some that even span the entire side of the blade from edge to spine. The stray diagonal scratches cover the entirety of the blade and the perpendicular grinding scratches are only near the tip. And I am photographing these with the absolute harshest synthetic lighting. Also, I included a couple photos from JNS so you can see that these scratches were present before it reached the hands of the customer incase that is in question. And sorry one of my photos is not in perfect focus, I did my best.
My first thought was maybe some how this happened with the previous owner but he assured me it was only taken out to look at, and I went ahead and looked at the original JNS listing and compared individual scratches for a good hour or so and I can say that I could spot the vast majority of the scratches in the original listing as well. So nothing was hidden here, nothing shady going on, just surprisingly rough. I haven’t bothered to get detail shots of the whole blade, just some of the front half so you can get an idea of how it looks.
Lastly, and this one kind of reinforces the lack of care that went into the knife is the handle installation. The previous owner was given the option to have the handle left off or installed. He chose to have it installed. Now I’m no handle installation expert but the last photo is with the handle laid flat on my bench and I confirmed that all the angles and faces of the handle are true and as expected. However the blade is installed about 10 degrees off. Again, I know nothing about handle installation so maybe I’m missing something here and this is some kind of weird traditional thing or a right handed thing, but to me it looks… wrong? And everybody else I asked confirmed this is terrible. It is also very noticeably twisted when looking at how it is inserted into the bolster so it is not an optical illusion of any kind.
Oh, and one other thing I forgot and I don't know if this is normal, good enough or bad. I have no idea. But the knife and the kiri box don't appear to be meant to be together. The knife is in a standard paper/carboard box which is then inside the kiri box. However there are these little blocks of wood added at either end to take up the extra space. It's almost like the kiri box is made for a 270 so some extra wood was added so that everything sits snuggly. Maybe this is totally normal, my only experience with kiri boxes is with the kaiju and river jump and neither look like this. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but there does appear to be a pattern of care here that this fits.
So again, this is a wonderful knife because of what it inherently is at its core. However, my assessment is that there was very little care put into this knife, and based on my conversations with other collectors, my feelings are an understatement. I love this knife, and I am eternally grateful for the unparalleled generosity of the member who sold it to me. However, if you have the opportunity to purchase one of these, I want you to know what to expect and I recommend not having the handle installed.
I think this knife has the potential to be absolutely spectacular, just needs a stone wizard to pull out the inner beauty.
@naader You busy? Wanna entertain us with a little polishing transformation thread?!?
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JNS Photos:
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