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Hey everyone! First real thread here. I wanna pose a question.
It seems the community here knows a lot of the big names in knife making. Shig, Kato, doi, konosuke, Toyama etc. There’s an exceptional amount of popular knife makers and brands. Some more expensive than others, or more popular than others.
The question being:

What is your favorite niche knife maker? Perhaps a brand or person that isn’t quite as spoken about.
What about their knives draws you to that brand/person?

EDIT:
I’ve realized that the term favorite is very difficult in this community (fairly so). Therefore, perhaps if you can’t name a favorite then just drop some cool small makers you know of that others may not :).
 
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I currently have 8 knives with 7 different makers, Can’t say there’s a favorite for me. I just grab one when it’s more suitable for specific tasks.
 
I bought A Milan Gravier from a kkf member and fell in love with it. The steel is C130. I love the aesthetics and find it super easy to sharpen. I’m eagerly awaiting the opening of his books.
 
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I'm liking my Matsubara knives (Katsuto Tanaka) and I dont think they are so much talked about. I have a 180mm white#1 ku gyuto, 300mm B#2 tsuchime sujihiki and a 150mm b#2 nashiji honesuki.

Not going to claim they are the best performers in class, but I like them each. Suji could use a bit more weight perhaps at 18x g, but it cuts meat full well.

I have few of the mentioned Kisukes too and they are great, but I just might put them or one of them to bst one day, even when I said I would never do that with the B1 gyuto. I have started appreciating stainless more and more. Thinking Kisukes price might shoot up though in future..

In Matsubara as well as Kisuke I was orginally drawn by the small maker aspect, that there shouldnt be a bigger operaration/factory making the knives. There is some vids of both on youtube or vimeo. There is lots of feeling in the Matsubara clip innmy view!


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Niche is, ironically, a very broad and difficult-to-nail down word here.

Among "small" knifemakers, man, I love my custom from @The Edge , and I love my Kato.

But... that's not fair to all of the other knives on my strip that I also love, and none of them, except the very old Mundial beaters, are anything other than "niche."

Performance-wise, now, for me, at this time, today, I reach for the Kato more than any other knife I own. Who knows what I'll say to answer that question next month, or next year.
 
I have a white 1 yanagi from Unshu Yukimitsu and absolutely love it.
It is easy to sharpen and gets crazy sharp. And the steel is very robust for white 1.
 
See, I wish I could forehead smack react to this too. But instead I have to make another post, adding an unnecessary 100mm of height to the discussion on my screen.

Can you not type the the (insert colon here) facepalm thing in old school bb fashion then?
It auto completes on this browser, but back in the day typing : facepalm : without the spaces would make one appear
 
The catch with this lazy-arsed button pressing ‘improvement’ is that I suspect the most bewildering and annoying posters would actually become the most liked.

This may be a win for me. Let’s do it
👍

Anyway, I like knives too
 
  • Haha
Reactions: ian
if we're just talking about stuff that ought to be more popular, Hinoura

if we're talking about WAY off the beaten path, Hatsukokoro
 
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