Top Japanese Makers/blacksmiths

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Any place to buy a Doi, besides the one that apparently can't be mentioned?
 
Korin sells Doi's work, or at least they did last time i looked...
 
Part of me thinks it's a little like Chinese/Taiwanese restaurants, where every shop and the one next to it is famous. I'm actually almost more curious which ones are not famous or respected.
 
There's a difference between someone calling themselves famous versus other people calling them famous :)
 
I definitely have my preferences on makers/brands that I trust will be stellar out of the box (note, not necessarily sharp, but well made with no 'problems'), but I wonder how much of that is really a reflection of the actual maker/sharpener, and how much is a reflection on the vendor who inspects and actually then sells the knife?

no doubt it's a combination of both

I'm absolutely convinced that folks like Jon and Maksim are personally inspecting every blade as a last-step quality measure, and they catch the occasional overgrind or warpage/mismounted handle so they don't actually reach us as the consumer - I trust them fully, and I've not had a problem from either of those vendors - but I have seen real overgrinds and mis-mounted handles from other vendors, so would actually prefer to purchase knives from them in person where I can select my own. A quick trip to the shops in Japan will show that these problems are fairly common (although the stores in Japan that I've purchased from are very accommodating and will fix/exchange/select the best, etc, IME)

I suppose it still doesn't answer the question of who the top makers/smiths are... my votes go to Hideyaki Yamamoto, Tokifusa Iizuka, Kenichi Shiraki, and Kiyoshi Kato - folks already mentioned here. But to be honest, while these are among the most outstanding knives I own my opinion of them is formed by only a few examples of their work (in some cases just one!) and they're the ones most readily available in a fairly narrow price category. I'd love to hear a short list of the best smiths from a sharpener/polisher (and a short list of sharpeners from a smith...)

realistically, the best makers IMHO are the ones whose knives you're reaching for most often
 
Now are most of the names mentioned a single blacksmith that does all the work or is it a small shop with a few people or are they companies or brands that produce the knives.
 
JMJones said:
Now are most of the names mentioned a single blacksmith that does all the work or is it a small shop with a few people or are they companies or brands that produce the knives.
Click to expand...

it's a combination - big brands like masamoto, suisin, and konosuke use smiths and sharpeners from multiple places and shuffle materials around to get everything done in a consistent way (with some exceptions that have individual identifiable craftsmen in their lines), and are really mostly just brand houses with little craftsman individuality (exceptions noted). I think konosuke is better known as a different brand in japan (kaneshige). Takeda is a one stop shop, but I think employs several folks so even then you're not necessarily getting a single craftsman-made knife. But there are certainly the individual craftsmen that are both forging and sharpening, sometimes with their sons helping - Osamu Takeishi (Heiji), Kiyoshi Kato (Yoshiaki Fujiwara), and Tokifusa Iizuka (shigefusa) come to mind (although even these guys may be employing assistants, etc).

And that's why it's so complicated to run a list of the "best knifemakers"...
 
what about a Teruyasu Fujiwara? I like it a lot. Some Hattori's are not bad as well.
Shigefusa- of course, he is on top..
 
Yoshikazu Tanaka. The one who nobody considers the very best, and at the same time, the one who nobody can live without.
 
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