I'm still using a lovely Henckels (mid-grade prosumer brand) paring knife that I picked up from a thrift shop for a dollar many years ago. It holds an edge very nicely (my go-to quick tomato...
I'm still using a lovely Henckels (mid-grade prosumer brand) paring knife that I picked up from a thrift shop for a dollar many years ago. It holds an edge very nicely (my go-to quick tomato slicer) and I think I've had to sharpen it once in all that time.
Thrifting and flea-marketing is fun, economical, and environmentally responsible when you're shopping for household needs only. I have a hard time imagining that it's really worth the time and hassle of reselling, even with unlimited time, expert knowledge, and cheap storage space. There are easier and more reliable ways to make a living for most people; you'd need to be very passionate about what you're selling to make it work. I was thrifting yesterday, found a beautiful Emil Rutenberg handwoven silk jacket for $6 that I could have turned around for $60, and realized that's a terrible mindset; I left it for someone who needed the clothes or the money.
I know there's at least one Tilder who refurbs and sells electronics, but consumer goods, even rare or antique ones, just don't seem worth the juice in the age of cheap manufacturing.
Even knowing if you're making a profit or not involves tracking price paid and expenses, some people skip this and end up losing money while thinking they're doing well.
Even knowing if you're making a profit or not involves tracking price paid and expenses, some people skip this and end up losing money while thinking they're doing well.
I know someone who makes money reselling rare books. Maybe there are easier ways to make a living for some people, but I think that's easier said than done. From what I hear, good jobs are hard to...
I know someone who makes money reselling rare books. Maybe there are easier ways to make a living for some people, but I think that's easier said than done. From what I hear, good jobs are hard to find?
I haven't done it, but it seems like reselling has some advantages. The barriers to entry are fairly low, mainly market knowledge and willingness to shlep. And there's a lot of flexibility in how you spend your time.
People paying higher prices for stuff on ebay is what makes it worthwhile for the resellers. I'm flabbergasted that people will pay so much for a kitchen knife. I think pretty much any cheap chef's knife you can buy will be pretty decent? I wonder if it's some kind of fad or bubble. But, hey, reuse is good, so why not.
Maybe it's not really in the spirit of flea markets, but I think there's a reasonable case that these resellers do some good. The vendors at the fleamarket will sell more stuff faster, making it more worthwhile for them to bother with it. They don't have to go through the trouble of dealing with ebay listings. Meanwhile, the people who shop on ebay can do a search and have stuff delivered instead of hunting for what they want at flea markets.
There are a lot of "middlemen" in markets that you could avoid to get a better deal if you're willing to put up with some inconvenience. They do perform a service.
You have to really love it. We resell bikes because my s/o really loves bikes, and comes across crazy deals so they buy the bike, but obviously we don’t want 100s of bikes so we sell most of them....
You have to really love it.
We resell bikes because my s/o really loves bikes, and comes across crazy deals so they buy the bike, but obviously we don’t want 100s of bikes so we sell most of them.
If you’re reselling, chances are your house is absolutely full to the brim with whatever it is you’re reselling.
It's like any other tool or accessory, a good knife can make cutting safer, more comfortable, and easier but it's no substitute for skill and technique. There's no guarantee that a more expensive...
I'm flabbergasted that people will pay so much for a kitchen knife. I think pretty much any cheap chef's knife you can buy will be pretty decent? I wonder if it's some kind of fad or bubble. But, hey, reuse is good, so why not.
It's like any other tool or accessory, a good knife can make cutting safer, more comfortable, and easier but it's no substitute for skill and technique. There's no guarantee that a more expensive knife will help you produce better tasting food. Expensive doesn't always mean good either, chef's knives are just as vulnerable to marketing and brand recognition as any other product. There are a lot of brands that go for style over substance.
I'm no photographer. If you gave me the most expensive gear, I might be able to take slightly nicer pictures than I could using only my phone, but the best lenses in the world won't make up for my lack of fundamentals. On the other hand, a decent photographer would be able to take even sub-par equipment and take a photo that's at the very least technically proficient. Give them the best gear, and they'll know exactly how to get the most out of it. Cooking is the same way.
I've been cooking for about 30 years and have knives that cost anywhere from $80 to $1,700. The $80 one has been with me since school and if I had to guess, I've spent at least 20,000 hours with it. Most of my other knives can hold a sharper edge and I'll use them when I really need that little extra bit of precision, but the $80 knife is basically an extension of my arm at this point.
I guess the moral of the story is that the quality of the knife matters, but not nearly as much as the price tag can suggest.
To add to what you said, there's kitchen knife the tool, and kitchen knife the artisanal product. As a tool you look for a durable object that's easily serviceable and ergonomic enough. Quality go...
I guess the moral of the story is that the quality of the knife matters, but not nearly as much as the price tag can suggest.
To add to what you said, there's kitchen knife the tool, and kitchen knife the artisanal product. As a tool you look for a durable object that's easily serviceable and ergonomic enough. Quality go with price but you quickly hit diminishing return.
As an artisanal product you look for a pretty appearance and/or the knowledge that some person spent a lot of time making it.
You know, I think the watch analogy is pretty good, but I wouldn't equate artisanal to pretty. An expensive mechanical watch (e.g. Rolex) will hold time significantly better than a cheap...
You know, I think the watch analogy is pretty good, but I wouldn't equate artisanal to pretty. An expensive mechanical watch (e.g. Rolex) will hold time significantly better than a cheap mechanical watch (e.g. cheap Seiko). Sure, you're paying for the assembly time and the brand to a certain extent, but it is legitimately a better product also.
Similarly, artisanal knives are typically made from better steel and/or with specific blade geometries. Just like with watches, you're paying in part for the looks and the scarcity, but they are actually better tools as well (or at least more specific tools).
(And before you point out that no mechanical watch can hold time worth a damn compared to quartz -- well, yeah. But that's why I said more specific tools. Same reason it's not legitimate criticism to say "why can't this $400 eel knife slice bread).
And that's what I said "diminishing returns" because I don't think those gaudy watches with more gems than mechanism have a better movement than a more restrain watch. But they're not going to...
But that's why I said more specific tools
And that's what I said "diminishing returns" because I don't think those gaudy watches with more gems than mechanism have a better movement than a more restrain watch. But they're not going to have a cheap clone either.
(I do have some nice knives so I know where you're coming from :) )
In reference to diminishing returns, a long time ago, my spouse discovered a website for "QPR" (quality to price ratio) on wine. It illustrated the point that virtually every product class...
In reference to diminishing returns, a long time ago, my spouse discovered a website for "QPR" (quality to price ratio) on wine. It illustrated the point that virtually every product class asymptotically approaches a hard ceiling on how "good" it can be due to technological limitations. Spending more money doesn't get you commensurately more of the definitional excellence.
At that point, it also becomes a question of what you're optimizing for - aesthetics, specific application, novelty, etc. In wine, it could be "Bordeaux-ness" or complexity, or pairing with specific foods, etc. In watches, it could be ornateness, accuracy, thinness, perfection for diving, durability, and so on.
In kitchen knives, it's sharpness, sturdiness, maintainability, ergonomics, aesthetics, task specificity, corrosion resistance... And because of the hard rules of material science, you can't really maximize all those axes at once.
Y'all got me shopping, and there's this for the true fetishists.
Like any tool, there are nuances to knives. As /u/gobiasindustries indicated, it's the technique that's 90% of using a knife, yet the 10% remaining is meaningful to serious users. I spent a fair...
Like any tool, there are nuances to knives. As /u/gobiasindustries indicated, it's the technique that's 90% of using a knife, yet the 10% remaining is meaningful to serious users. I spent a fair amount on my main chef's knife when I was working in a kitchen professionally, but that wasn't primarily for sharpness. It was to get a Japanese wa D-shaped knife handle that fitted my (female) hand properly for precision and comfort in all-day use.
There are knife connoisseurs and fetishists who will spend any amount for artistry or technical wizardry, but it's really not about cooking at that point.
You'll laugh, but it was a straightforward Shun Classic 10" chef's knife. I've heard that this knife was better made in 2000 when I got it than they are now. I was mainly a pastry cook but also...
You'll laugh, but it was a straightforward Shun Classic 10" chef's knife. I've heard that this knife was better made in 2000 when I got it than they are now.
I was mainly a pastry cook but also did café cooking. The blade length was perfect for both prep and precision slicing for puff pastry, and other delicate work, but it was lighter and easier to handle than European-style knives.
Spouse got me a petty knife from the same line a couple of years ago to accommodate my creaky hands, and it's the ideal utility fit between the long knife and the 4" Henckels paring knife.
If it’s a good fit, it’s a good fit! Also, 2000 was way before Shun became the sort of meme knife that it is now, so nothing to laugh about. Besides, I don’t think Shun deserves the...
If it’s a good fit, it’s a good fit!
Also, 2000 was way before Shun became the sort of meme knife that it is now, so nothing to laugh about. Besides, I don’t think Shun deserves the middling-to-bad reputation it has on knife forums. They don’t make bad knives. Can you get something better for the price? Sure. But do they make a good product that’s a good foray into Japanese steel/handles for non-knife-obsessed-weirdos? Also yes. Not everybody needs a kiritsuke made out of Blue #2 that can cut silk but will rust if you look at it wrong, you know?
Even now, the Shun Classic apparently makes it onto the "best chef's knives" lists... At the time, I went to multiple cooking supply stores, Williams-Sonoma, etc. and tried everything I could get...
Even now, the Shun Classic apparently makes it onto the "best chef's knives" lists... At the time, I went to multiple cooking supply stores, Williams-Sonoma, etc. and tried everything I could get my hands on because my "got me through cooking school" Victorinox Fibrox set (still a good cheap pick if you keep sharpening them as needed) just wasn't working well enough on a day-to-day basis. The Shun knife was the Grail, even if it cost most of a week's pay. Yes, it's brittle if you handle it poorly, but mine is still doing the necessary after a couple of decades.
Edit: That's not to say I haven't lusted in my heart after other knives, but there's no practical justification for anything better than I've got.
Sidenote: Looking at that "other knife", if you know, what is it that makes it swedish? I don't see anything in the description that references sweden in any way.
Sidenote: Looking at that "other knife", if you know, what is it that makes it swedish? I don't see anything in the description that references sweden in any way.
The other 240 mm "Swedish" gyuto on the site, from Konosuke, specifically calls out the use of Swedish stainless steel, and the Kikuichi specifies the same alloy name, AEB-L.
The other 240 mm "Swedish" gyuto on the site, from Konosuke, specifically calls out the use of Swedish stainless steel, and the Kikuichi specifies the same alloy name, AEB-L.
Thanks! That makes sense, in my mind I was thinking Damascus != Sweden, but I guess damascus steel has not necessarily been made in damascus for a long time =).
Thanks! That makes sense, in my mind I was thinking Damascus != Sweden, but I guess damascus steel has not necessarily been made in damascus for a long time =).
Yes, "damascus" has become a generic term for multiply folded alloy layers intended to combine higher carbon toughness with a harder, but more brittle edge metal.
Yes, "damascus" has become a generic term for multiply folded alloy layers intended to combine higher carbon toughness with a harder, but more brittle edge metal.
When I first started buying vintage knives at the flea market, I had a few prearranged stops: people who would regularly find knives and liked dealing with me, and I liked dealing with them, too. Otherwise, I would walk around asking the sellers if they had any knives. In the early days from 2005 to 2008, it was common for people to say, “No, but I do have some cook knives”. Most people asking around for knives at 6 am back then were looking for old military, pocket, and hunting knives. Culinary knives were considered chaff, often sold for $1 to $5 because they were deemed to have little value beyond utilitarian use. Within about 5 to 8 years, it seems one of these dealers heard from someone that a Sabatier sold for $100 online, and after that, every Sabatier became worth $100, and in the eyes of many, every chef' knife became a Sabatier. Deceased people whose families had no interest in their stuff and people who didn’t pony up on their storage unit bills started having fewer and fewer good knives in their stuff, and eventually, the volume of good culinary knives made their way less and less to the market. This is the short version of my small microcosm as seen from a Bay Area perspective; maybe it's different elsewhere, but this is my experience.
"The point of a header is not just to provide an excerpt from the following paragraph." I think the writer has got the wrong idea about how excerpts are supposed to work in written text. Excerpts...
"The point of a header is not just to provide an excerpt from the following paragraph."
I think the writer has got the wrong idea about how excerpts are supposed to work in written text. Excerpts are supposed to catch your interest, but they are not supposed to be headers. The point of a header is not just to provide an excerpt from the following paragraph. Especially not when there exists a header before every one or two paragraphs. It just makes you feel like you're reading everything twice.
Excerpts are my enemy, and if they all went away I have a hard time believing anyone will ever miss them. It’s one thing to have them in print media with their large pages, but it’s another thing...
Excerpts are my enemy, and if they all went away I have a hard time believing anyone will ever miss them.
It’s one thing to have them in print media with their large pages, but it’s another thing entirely to put them on small screens - cellphones especially.
I'm still using a lovely Henckels (mid-grade prosumer brand) paring knife that I picked up from a thrift shop for a dollar many years ago. It holds an edge very nicely (my go-to quick tomato slicer) and I think I've had to sharpen it once in all that time.
Thrifting and flea-marketing is fun, economical, and environmentally responsible when you're shopping for household needs only. I have a hard time imagining that it's really worth the time and hassle of reselling, even with unlimited time, expert knowledge, and cheap storage space. There are easier and more reliable ways to make a living for most people; you'd need to be very passionate about what you're selling to make it work. I was thrifting yesterday, found a beautiful Emil Rutenberg handwoven silk jacket for $6 that I could have turned around for $60, and realized that's a terrible mindset; I left it for someone who needed the clothes or the money.
I know there's at least one Tilder who refurbs and sells electronics, but consumer goods, even rare or antique ones, just don't seem worth the juice in the age of cheap manufacturing.
Even knowing if you're making a profit or not involves tracking price paid and expenses, some people skip this and end up losing money while thinking they're doing well.
I know someone who makes money reselling rare books. Maybe there are easier ways to make a living for some people, but I think that's easier said than done. From what I hear, good jobs are hard to find?
I haven't done it, but it seems like reselling has some advantages. The barriers to entry are fairly low, mainly market knowledge and willingness to shlep. And there's a lot of flexibility in how you spend your time.
People paying higher prices for stuff on ebay is what makes it worthwhile for the resellers. I'm flabbergasted that people will pay so much for a kitchen knife. I think pretty much any cheap chef's knife you can buy will be pretty decent? I wonder if it's some kind of fad or bubble. But, hey, reuse is good, so why not.
Maybe it's not really in the spirit of flea markets, but I think there's a reasonable case that these resellers do some good. The vendors at the fleamarket will sell more stuff faster, making it more worthwhile for them to bother with it. They don't have to go through the trouble of dealing with ebay listings. Meanwhile, the people who shop on ebay can do a search and have stuff delivered instead of hunting for what they want at flea markets.
There are a lot of "middlemen" in markets that you could avoid to get a better deal if you're willing to put up with some inconvenience. They do perform a service.
You have to really love it.
We resell bikes because my s/o really loves bikes, and comes across crazy deals so they buy the bike, but obviously we don’t want 100s of bikes so we sell most of them.
If you’re reselling, chances are your house is absolutely full to the brim with whatever it is you’re reselling.
We have so many bikes. Send help.
It's like any other tool or accessory, a good knife can make cutting safer, more comfortable, and easier but it's no substitute for skill and technique. There's no guarantee that a more expensive knife will help you produce better tasting food. Expensive doesn't always mean good either, chef's knives are just as vulnerable to marketing and brand recognition as any other product. There are a lot of brands that go for style over substance.
I'm no photographer. If you gave me the most expensive gear, I might be able to take slightly nicer pictures than I could using only my phone, but the best lenses in the world won't make up for my lack of fundamentals. On the other hand, a decent photographer would be able to take even sub-par equipment and take a photo that's at the very least technically proficient. Give them the best gear, and they'll know exactly how to get the most out of it. Cooking is the same way.
I've been cooking for about 30 years and have knives that cost anywhere from $80 to $1,700. The $80 one has been with me since school and if I had to guess, I've spent at least 20,000 hours with it. Most of my other knives can hold a sharper edge and I'll use them when I really need that little extra bit of precision, but the $80 knife is basically an extension of my arm at this point.
I guess the moral of the story is that the quality of the knife matters, but not nearly as much as the price tag can suggest.
To add to what you said, there's kitchen knife the tool, and kitchen knife the artisanal product. As a tool you look for a durable object that's easily serviceable and ergonomic enough. Quality go with price but you quickly hit diminishing return.
As an artisanal product you look for a pretty appearance and/or the knowledge that some person spent a lot of time making it.
See also: watches and luxury watches.
You know, I think the watch analogy is pretty good, but I wouldn't equate artisanal to pretty. An expensive mechanical watch (e.g. Rolex) will hold time significantly better than a cheap mechanical watch (e.g. cheap Seiko). Sure, you're paying for the assembly time and the brand to a certain extent, but it is legitimately a better product also.
Similarly, artisanal knives are typically made from better steel and/or with specific blade geometries. Just like with watches, you're paying in part for the looks and the scarcity, but they are actually better tools as well (or at least more specific tools).
(And before you point out that no mechanical watch can hold time worth a damn compared to quartz -- well, yeah. But that's why I said more specific tools. Same reason it's not legitimate criticism to say "why can't this $400 eel knife slice bread).
And that's what I said "diminishing returns" because I don't think those gaudy watches with more gems than mechanism have a better movement than a more restrain watch. But they're not going to have a cheap clone either.
(I do have some nice knives so I know where you're coming from :) )
In reference to diminishing returns, a long time ago, my spouse discovered a website for "QPR" (quality to price ratio) on wine. It illustrated the point that virtually every product class asymptotically approaches a hard ceiling on how "good" it can be due to technological limitations. Spending more money doesn't get you commensurately more of the definitional excellence.
At that point, it also becomes a question of what you're optimizing for - aesthetics, specific application, novelty, etc. In wine, it could be "Bordeaux-ness" or complexity, or pairing with specific foods, etc. In watches, it could be ornateness, accuracy, thinness, perfection for diving, durability, and so on.
In kitchen knives, it's sharpness, sturdiness, maintainability, ergonomics, aesthetics, task specificity, corrosion resistance... And because of the hard rules of material science, you can't really maximize all those axes at once.
Y'all got me shopping, and there's this for the true fetishists.
Like any tool, there are nuances to knives. As /u/gobiasindustries indicated, it's the technique that's 90% of using a knife, yet the 10% remaining is meaningful to serious users. I spent a fair amount on my main chef's knife when I was working in a kitchen professionally, but that wasn't primarily for sharpness. It was to get a Japanese wa D-shaped knife handle that fitted my (female) hand properly for precision and comfort in all-day use.
There are knife connoisseurs and fetishists who will spend any amount for artistry or technical wizardry, but it's really not about cooking at that point.
What'd you get?
You'll laugh, but it was a straightforward Shun Classic 10" chef's knife. I've heard that this knife was better made in 2000 when I got it than they are now.
I was mainly a pastry cook but also did café cooking. The blade length was perfect for both prep and precision slicing for puff pastry, and other delicate work, but it was lighter and easier to handle than European-style knives.
Spouse got me a petty knife from the same line a couple of years ago to accommodate my creaky hands, and it's the ideal utility fit between the long knife and the 4" Henckels paring knife.
If it’s a good fit, it’s a good fit!
Also, 2000 was way before Shun became the sort of meme knife that it is now, so nothing to laugh about. Besides, I don’t think Shun deserves the middling-to-bad reputation it has on knife forums. They don’t make bad knives. Can you get something better for the price? Sure. But do they make a good product that’s a good foray into Japanese steel/handles for non-knife-obsessed-weirdos? Also yes. Not everybody needs a kiritsuke made out of Blue #2 that can cut silk but will rust if you look at it wrong, you know?
Even now, the Shun Classic apparently makes it onto the "best chef's knives" lists... At the time, I went to multiple cooking supply stores, Williams-Sonoma, etc. and tried everything I could get my hands on because my "got me through cooking school" Victorinox Fibrox set (still a good cheap pick if you keep sharpening them as needed) just wasn't working well enough on a day-to-day basis. The Shun knife was the Grail, even if it cost most of a week's pay. Yes, it's brittle if you handle it poorly, but mine is still doing the necessary after a couple of decades.
Edit: That's not to say I haven't lusted in my heart after other knives, but there's no practical justification for anything better than I've got.
Sidenote: Looking at that "other knife", if you know, what is it that makes it swedish? I don't see anything in the description that references sweden in any way.
The other 240 mm "Swedish" gyuto on the site, from Konosuke, specifically calls out the use of Swedish stainless steel, and the Kikuichi specifies the same alloy name, AEB-L.
Thanks! That makes sense, in my mind I was thinking Damascus != Sweden, but I guess damascus steel has not necessarily been made in damascus for a long time =).
Yes, "damascus" has become a generic term for multiply folded alloy layers intended to combine higher carbon toughness with a harder, but more brittle edge metal.
From the blog post:
It's a somewhat interesting article, perhaps more so because of my own interest in knives, but it is not very well written.
"The point of a header is not just to provide an excerpt from the following paragraph."
I think the writer has got the wrong idea about how excerpts are supposed to work in written text. Excerpts are supposed to catch your interest, but they are not supposed to be headers. The point of a header is not just to provide an excerpt from the following paragraph. Especially not when there exists a header before every one or two paragraphs. It just makes you feel like you're reading everything twice.
Excerpts are my enemy, and if they all went away I have a hard time believing anyone will ever miss them.
It’s one thing to have them in print media with their large pages, but it’s another thing entirely to put them on small screens - cellphones especially.
I had an RSS feed do that with news articles, I felt like I was having a stroke.