Anyone who is into knives has seen the ads on Instagram and Facebook advertising knife sets. Sometimes they're Damascus, sometimes it's "high carbon", sometimes it's some exotic steel that will never get dull. Most of the times they are some very beautiful cheap knives from a company with a Japanese sounding name. They usually come attractively packaged in a leather knife roll or similar.
Buyer Beware, these awesome knives that you see advertised in your feed from some Japanese company that you've never heard of are almost always low quality knives custom etched and drop-shipped from China. When that sweet set of knives that you've been waiting for finally arrives at your door, you will open up a box full of disappointment and that company you ordered from will offer no support and may not even exist anymore. This is the sad reality of the knife scams I see everyday offered at too good to be true prices.
You are not getting a quality set of 5 Damascus Steel knives for $199. It's just not happening. A billet of Damascus to make one knife could very easily cost the maker that to buy, and the hours it would take someone to make true Damascus would easily cost that.
The reason I bring this up is because I recently had a client bring a set to me that his wife had purchased and personalized online for him. While her intentions were good, what she actually purchased was a set of low quality knives made from mild steel that would not hold an edge if you could even get it to take one with questionable geometry that is essentially useless. Everything about these things are low quality and because the sellers are not reputable, you end up with essentially a pile of scrap steel that looks knife but will have a hard time cutting room temperature butter.
In addition to the steel being of questionable quality the geometry of the blades is sketchy at best. The pairing knife and Nakiri are both thicker than a plus sized model, and one of the knives has a 2" choil. A design choice that in addition to being ugly, makes the knife kind of useless.
Overall I would rate these knives: N/A because they are knife shaped objects, not actually functioning knives.
The next time you are browsing and one of these ads for a set of "Rare Japanese Uber Steel" knives pops up for the low low price of $25/ knife, save yourself some money, time, and disappointment and keep scrolling.
-GD3