Vintage Takayuki? Any info? Value?

[PeopleoftheSun]

Hey KKF,

Just saw this apparently vintage 300mm Takayuki pop up on my local CL (for $90) and was wondering if anyone could shed some wisdom. I couldn’t find anything similar with some google sleuthing, but I’m not an expert sleuther.

I’m assuming it’s stainless because of the lack of patina, but any ideas what stainless it might be? Any translation of the Kanji? Good, great, or meh value?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Greasylake]

The kanji are: 堺孝行 - Sakai Takayuki, followed by 別上, which I think would be read as betsujou, but I'm not 100% confident on the reading.

There's a handful of them listed on yahoo and looking through the listings I didn't see any mention of steel but many of them had pitting and stuff and looked like carbon, I think yours is too. If you punch 堺孝行別上 into Google you should get some results and a few youtube videos. Hopefully that's enough to get you (or someone else) started on a bit of a deeper dive

 

[refcast]

The value is average. It's probably not gonna be exceptional though. It's not particularly super rare or valuable, it's a large gyuto for butchery work.

 

[Atso_J]

According to my little experience, Sakai Takayuki usually marks their stainless steel knives with the English word stainless. If it's stainless, my educated WAG would be Swedish. The marking 別上 (my translator app gives "betsukami" for "separately") usually suggests carbon though. To find out I would just do the good old onion or lemon (juice) abuse but as the knife is apparently still at the store that's not really an option. You could probably ask them what the think and or would they be willing to test it around to find out.

 

[PolishAvenger]

Just so happens that this big boy is mine. It's as carbon as the day is long.
-Mark

 

[PeopleoftheSun]

Haha I wondered if you might be a member on here after your email response. Thanks Mark!

 

[PolishAvenger]

Sure thing!
And, you're right....we can be easy to spot, eh?

-Mark

 

[deltaplex]

Hey KKF,

Just saw this apparently vintage 300mm Takayuki pop up on my local CL (for $90) and was wondering if anyone could shed some wisdom. I couldn’t find anything similar with some google sleuthing, but I’m not an expert sleuther.

I’m assuming it’s stainless because of the lack of patina, but any ideas what stainless it might be? Any translation of the Kanji? Good, great, or meh value?

Thanks in advance!

How thick behind the edge is that one? I've got a petty from around the same timeframe that's thicc.

 

[PolishAvenger]

As can be seen in the pics, the last owner put on (or had put on) a really tall edge bevel to mitigate that OE thickness. That edge is as tall as .114 in places. Behind the edge is .030.

-Mark