A World Through Lenses

While this site is filled with a lot of Japanese collectible toys, I’ve got some other merchandises that’s made in Japan and is of a little collectible value (to some). I’m talking about Japanese knives. Now I’m not a knife enthusiast, but I do like a sharp knife may it be on the cutting board for cooking, for craft, or any other things that I do with the help of a blade. And of course I wouldn’t mind if the knife also happens to look good. Why Japanese knives? Well because Japanese knives are harder and retains their edge sharpness better than your typical knives like Wusthof or Henckels from Germany. Although I think German manufacturers are playing catch up with their product lines and have recently introduced new products with features previously seen only in Japanese knives. But like I said, I’m not a knife enthusiast, so I just stick with what I know and what I know that works. The other reason why I choose Japanese knives is that these Japanese knives that I purchased are all hand made by relatively small blacksmiths. This makes me really appreciate the art of making knives by hand rather than machine stamped production from large manufacturers. And I’ve always appreciated fine craftsmanship.

This first knife is a Tenmi-Jyuraku (天味寿楽) Damascus Santoku 180mm by Hiromoto. Santoku, or in Japanese 三徳 (loosely translated into Three Virtues), can be considered as a small version of the chef’s knife. I bought this one online from Japanese Chef’s Knife a long time ago. Today Japanese Chef’s Knife with their fast and cheap flat rate shipping service directly from Seki City – Japan’s knife capital, is still one of the places that I go to for Japanese knives. In fact I looked around in the local shops and on the Internet, buying from Japanese Chef’s Knife is still one of the cheapest and sometimes fastest way to get these Japanese knives.

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