ZHEN Japanese VG-10 Damascus Dragon Gyuto Chef Knife, 9.5-Inch

Although the knife feels a little light in my big hands, it is a wonderful knife. I use it every day and have not had to sharpen it in the two months I've had it.

This is one beautiful, very well fitted and finished knife. The pictures don't do it justice. I haven't used it enough to rate the cutting quality and I'm no professional chef, but it is really sharp right out of the box. Before I bought it I did do some internet checking and found a professional chef's review video that ranked this knife as almost as good as the Ken Onion. I am glad I made the purchase and would do again and I do recommend.

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OK, got that off my chest and I still give the knife 4 stars. When I first saw this knife here on Amazon I knew something was up because of the price and the fact that it wouldn't say where it was made. Did a lot of searching with very little results though I think that will change. I found the knife on another site for a little less but also that site was honest and said flat out it was made in Taiwan. I was very tempted to only give this knife 3 stars because of what I saw as an attempt to mislead but I have had email contact with the company regarding possible availability of a Hankotsu style knife and found them to be fast responding, pleasant and professional and I think an honest company. OK, the knife.

I went over this thing with a magnifying glass, literally. F&F are great! I could find no imperfections. A beautiful knife. Total length by my measurement is 14 3/8" Handle is 5" blade 9 3/8 balance is right at the bolster heel. I find it light and as if it's a shorter blade. It is sharpened at a 16 degree angle and comes out of the box ready for business with no irregularities on the edge. I have to admit I expected, even hoped a little to need to run it over my sharpener but I feel that it's blade is exactly where it needs to be for a knife of this type. When the time comes to sharpen it I might take it down to a 12 degree but don't know and suspect that will be a long while from now due to it's performance. I will try and remember to update this at that time. It made fast work of a whole chicken, I know this is not the style of knife for that kind of work and a 9.5 blade is a little much for 1 poor little chicken but I ran out of potatoes and onions "cuts them good too". Again this is a great knife and I thank the Zhen company for putting this kind of quality at this kind of price. I know there are some who won't buy this because it isn't made in Japan and hey, if you want to pay 2-3 times more for a knife of the same quality and performance just because it was made by a little 70 year old man who hand forges every blade exactly as his great grandfather did 200 years ago by all means go for it, he will need the money when he is to old to turn out 10-20 knives a day by hand.

If I were going to ask one thing of this knife it would be that it be stamped or laser engraved with a little dragoon or some Japanese writing. Yeah, it's a tool but it's a beautiful tool and I will probably use this the rest of my life.

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