Value from smith or sharpener?

[henkle]

Hi - If a smith is making knives for multiple vendors or series (say Y. Tanaka using shirogmi #2 steel), is the difference in quality/price come from the forging of the knife or from the work done by the sharpener. For example, you can find a Y. Tanaka W2 210 gyuto sharpened by Aijoka-san (Itadaki) for around $220 USD, one sharpened by Maruoyama-san (Hado sumi) for around $250 USD (both from Miura), one sharpened by Mitimoto Nakazima for $316 USD (JNS), and one sharpened by Yohei-san for $375 USD (Hitohiro, actually W1). While there are some different finishes here (kurouchi, hairline, etc.) there don't seem to be any extreme differences.

Allowing for different vendor mark-ups and manipulating availability, my question is I guess, is Tanaka-san doing anything different to the steel (HT, hammered finish, etc.) to justify the price differences across these various series, or is the skill level of the respective finishers the justification. Or is it all just hype?

 

[Jovidah]

I think different sharpener and finish definitly plays a role in price. Some finishes clearly take more time and / or skill to execute. To what extent that justifies a price difference? Yeah that's a big can of worms...
The trend for Tanaka knives also seems to be that the blue steel knives are consistently more expensive. Not sure why that is because there's plenty of cheap blue knives around as well.