Every time this conversation comes up I am reminded of how limited our language is with respect to knives. High end knives, custom knives; the whole rich variety of cutting implements that we have today is a a very recent development brought on by a combination of an ever increasing pool of small craftsmen and ever improving communications. It has only really been around for a couple of generations. It is at a point where it is not unusual for an end user to order a knife directly from a maker that is located on the other side of the planet, with the expectation that the knife would arrive within days.
But with all this diversity comes the real challenge of distinguishing the product. This is where the language fails us and leave marketing folks with little more to say than a litany of meaningless chemical compositions under a senseless variety of names. It may be made of blankety-blank steel, but so what? What we really want to know is why we should choose that product, and whether it can deliver and particular advantage to the user. We have no way to convey this. Unlike tires, we have no standard that would allow us to say, that this knife is rated for 50,000 cuts, while the competitor can only do 25,000. We do not even have a size refence for knife handles, although we all know that whether you have very small, medium or very large hands will go a long way in determining the relative ergonomics of a knife. Basic questions, like how long can I expect for your knife to deliver good service and what is a reasonable definition for that service, how much energy does it take to perform a particular cut with your knife, or what is the proper maintenance routine for this knife, remain complete gray zones.
We need for marketing to step up their game and develop objective standards of informative by which we can judge the product. Granted, everyone uses knives differently, but they also use everything else differently. Our rating systems for other products are based on standard models as a means of comparison. That is what is needed in the industry, the exhaustive list of magic steels is not very informative.
I want to be able to buy a knife because it weighs less, has an edge retention that is 200 hours versus 125 for its competitor, that is of the right size for my hand, and rated at 50 years of longevity which might be 10 years more than its closest competition. But, we can't say that today because that language just isn't there.
n2s