Right this very moment, this exact set is sold out elsewhere on the site.


[MOD: Not unusual. We have to stop the other sale to correctly manage inventory.]

These are the highest quality knives at an affordable price. And they'll look fabulous on display in your kitchen!

As a vegetarian, I just feel like these knives would always be overkill. Can someone please help me justify dropping this much on 3 knives?

editorkid wrote:Right this very moment, this exact set is sold out elsewhere on the site.


[MOD: Not unusual. We have to stop the other sale to correctly manage inventory.]

Oh, understood. It's just redundantly repetitive.

hippie19 wrote:As a vegetarian, I just feel like these knives would always be overkill. Can someone please help me justify dropping this much on 3 knives?

What, you can only cut meat with these knives? Considering the retail price on these, $200 for 3 Shuns is a great deal.

onthedl wrote:What, you can only cut meat with these knives? Considering the retail price on these, $200 for 3 Shuns is a great deal.

I just haven't had trouble cutting through kale or carrots with the knives I've had for 10 years (never had sharpened either).

hippie19 wrote:As a vegetarian, I just feel like these knives would always be overkill. Can someone please help me justify dropping this much on 3 knives?

It's just for showing off. You don't need a $80k car to drive to work, either.

michael2255 wrote:It's just for showing off. You don't need a $80k car to drive to work, either.

I disagree. While I only own the 7" knife, I love it. It's the pride and joy of my entire kitchen. I love to cook and while I mostly use it for chopping vegi's, it makes this task a breeze. While I agree, generally this is not a huge difference, the quality and sharpness and feel of my 7" knife is outstanding.

I suggest them to anyone who cooks regularly and can afford it. This is a great deal. I spent $200 on just my knife alone. I would get this deal except I don't need a second one, the first one will last me a lifetime.

Buy these if you can (if you'll use them). You won't regret it.

Drop $200 for the knives and another $20 for a magnetic wall strip and you put them on display :p

hippie19 wrote:As a vegetarian, I just feel like these knives would always be overkill. Can someone please help me justify dropping this much on 3 knives?

With all these Shun Classic deals over the last few months us left-handers are feeling left out. Any chance of a left-handed version sometime?

These knives have handles angled only for right-handed people.

hippie19 wrote:As a vegetarian, I just feel like these knives would always be overkill. Can someone please help me justify dropping this much on 3 knives?

How much do you value your time? I love my Shuns because they cut down on (sorry, couldn't help myself) on prep time considerably. That time savings alone likely makes these worth it.

Serrated utility is good for bread (if you don't have a bread knife). Also useful for harder vegetables if you don't have, or don't like using, a large chef's knife.

Also, the paring knife is really nice for more detailed fruit/vegetable prep if you're into that sorta thing.

seattlekleins wrote:How much do you value your time? I love my Shuns because they cut down on (sorry, couldn't help myself) on prep time considerably. That time savings alone likely makes these worth it.

Serrated utility is good for bread (if you don't have a bread knife). Also useful for harder vegetables if you don't have, or don't like using, a large chef's knife.

Also, the paring knife is really nice for more detailed fruit/vegetable prep if you're into that sorta thing.

Very nice knives, but how much time are you really saving in prep time? What were you using that used so much more time? I'm not picking a fight, but I've just never heard of anyone complaining their knives cost them loads of time. Unless they were dull as butter knives.

hippie19 wrote:As a vegetarian, I just feel like these knives would always be overkill. Can someone please help me justify dropping this much on 3 knives?

Maybe this can help in the justification :-)): These knives aren't really that useful with meat at all -- you'd be looking for slicers or filet knives. Nope, these guys are meant for vegetarians!! There is not much that can compare to that 7 in santoku knife when it comes to chopping veggies. You might already know that the sharper the knife the less tears when chopping onions since there is less cell damage to the onion? Well, this is "no tear santoku". Fast and sure. But seriously, hard winter squashes to the thinnest skinned tomatoes will be no problem with this range of knives. I absolutely love mine.

I like this reply.
It made me question what I generally cut the most at work. (No one gets to say cheese).

It's 80 percent onions. Seriously. It's varying degrees and sizes of onion/veggies to accompany whatever is being produced.

When meat is being prepared, it's more often trimming and therefore requires a smaller flexible knife.

A 10" Chefs knife does 90 percent of all tasks.

From this set I would venture a guess that the serrated knife is fairly all around useful and will get some use, the paring knife will get virtually no use, and the santoku would get the most, though it is a little on the small side.

I would still attempt to stick to a metal edge that is maintainable a little more than these.
(They suck to hone back to an edge). They are also on the brittle side and don't take kindly to being dropped.

While I wouldn't choose a shun at all, I would be overjoyed if someone bought me a set.
There's certainly a lot worse you could do. They're quality.

waterdogs wrote:Maybe this can help in the justification :-)): These knives aren't really that useful with meat at all -- you'd be looking for slicers or filet knives. Nope, these guys are meant for vegetarians!! There is not much that can compare to that 7 in santoku knife when it comes to chopping veggies. You might already know that the sharper the knife the less tears when chopping onions since there is less cell damage to the onion? Well, this is "no tear santoku". Fast and sure. But seriously, hard winter squashes to the thinnest skinned tomatoes will be no problem with this range of knives. I absolutely love mine.

True, I think people need to examine how they use their knives.

I eyed this set for a while but realized that I will likely never use anything but the santoku from this set so I ended up grabbing the premier santoku when amazon had it on sale for cheap. Even so, I still prefer to use a chinese cleaver style knife most of the time.

I used to use a cheap-ish Cuisinart brand knife which I was sharpening all the time (I'd taken ~1/8" of blade off it), and I was satisfied with it - it worked quite well when freshly sharpened - but I was super excited when I got this knife set for Christmas having fantasies of being able to just drop my new knife straight through a tomato or onion like it was warm butter. Unfortunately, those fantasies did not come true. I will say that I had never owned or even used a professional quality knife before so perhaps my expectations were too high, but I was disappointed. Sharpness-wise it's only slightly better than my Cuisinart brand freshly sharpened in my cheap electric sharpener.

All the other features about the knife are fantastic though. It's very light making it easy to control (although the lightness of the blade feels a little strange to me). The blade seems to be clad in some non-stick something: it's very easy to clean. And the handle feels nice in the hand. (note for left handers: while the handle has a slight angle, it's mostly round and my left-handed friend said it feels perfectly comfortable in his hand.) Also, the knives are just beautiful, and the damascus steel swirlies will impress your friends.

While it's tempting to get a set of these, I just don't know that I can drop two Benjamins on what would amount to one knife I would use (the Santoku) and then, I don't know what it can do that my Victorinox Chef's knife can't.

That paring knife is all sorts of weird.

Then again, I don't own any sort of great knives. I have a mix of Victorinox, Messermeister and restaurant supply stuff so maybe I just don't know what I'm missing. :-/

I bought these a couple weeks ago. They are wicked sharp and very well made. So far I still have all my fingers and am very happy with them.

Not my favorite combination of the Shun knives I've seen here, BUT, the 7" Santoku knife is all sorts of awesome. It's my knife of choice for vegetables, especially onions. I find it to be a better choice than the chef's knife. (Not that a super sharp chef's knife isn't also great.)

As for the other two, a great 6" serrated knife will have a lifetime of uses. Having said that, I tend to use a $10 Ginsu type more often than my high quality one. Works great slicing tomatoes and bread, and I don't have to take very good care of it.

And this paring knife is odd. I have a regular Shun paring knife, and it is great. I would imagine this one is just as high quality, but I imagine it will take a lot of getting used to that shape.

I didn't buy shun, and this is why:

Razor sharp is awesome. Light is great. They look like a dream.

They are also so incredibly hard that if you abuse them or even make a mistake, you will chip them, and there goes your $150 knife.

If you feel comfortable that you won't nick a bone (in the food or your hand) then shun are the bidness. If you don't cut food with hard pits or seeds, and the hardest thing you will ask this knife to cut is an acorn squash, then you are EXACTLY who this knife is made for.

If you think there is a chance you may chip it; these knives use steel so hard you WILL chip them. Trust me. Take care of them.

My chef knife is a Messermeister (very underrated and therefore pleasantly inexpensive) meridian elite. It is almost a hybrid; lighter and sharper (15 degree edge is standard) than german but german steel, so while it won't hold that fantastic edge as long, it's more forgiving and less likely to chip. I also like a slightly heavier knife and the shuns are very light and very sharp...very dangerous if you don't have good fundamental knife skills.

Perfect(ly wierd shaped) paring Knife = Can't sharpen at home
Serrated Utility Knife = Can't sharpen at home
Hollow-Ground Santoku = Can't sharpen at home

I know Shun offers sharpening (for now) but you have to plan ahead and send them in (along with postage) Personally, I'd pass on anything I can't sharpen using a whetstone.

I bought this set on Woot just after Xmas(serrated knife was replaced by the utility/sandwich knife). After using them for two weeks or so - they are good NOT great.

The reviews I had read made them seem like these knives would be the closest thing humans could get to a light-sabre. They are certainly sharp. But, then so are my Wusthofs and Twin-Stars. Overall, I'd have to say I'm not exactly overwhelmed.

Having said all that, it is still a good deal. I recently bought a high-carbon 9' slicer (non-serrated) at BB&B that was over $100 with the ubiquitous 20% coupon. The utility knife here is a little funky with the irregular shape of the blade. And, I don't think a serrated knife warrants the Shun premium you're paying. But, if you need them - it's still a fair deal. Just don't get your hopes up. They are just knives...

do these have protectors, so the blades don't hit each other and dull in the drawers?

michael2255 wrote:It's just for showing off. You don't need a $80k car to drive to work, either.

I beg to differ.. I do need my porsche to drive to work.. otherwise I'd have to walk the 1.3 miles.. I'm trying to fill up my carbon footprint

Woot/Amazon must have boxes of these knives in the warehouse. Seems like they're listed every other day.

fredrinaldi wrote:do these have protectors, so the blades don't hit each other and dull in the drawers?

Good God, I hope you are joking. If you drop two-hundy on knives you better have a nice wood block to keep them in or a magnetic strip to wall-hang.
Putting these knives in a drawer is like leaving your eggs loose to roll around in the back of the a pick-up truck. Not pretty....

I'd be tempted to get this since it would add to my previous Shun Classic 2 piece set. Then I could just keep the 6" non-serrated knife that was accidentally shipped with that order instead of the 6" serrated. Then I wouldn't have to call them and sort it out.

Has Shun and Woot fixed the issue with sending out the wrong knives?

fredrinaldi wrote:do these have protectors, so the blades don't hit each other and dull in the drawers?

I received these with the blades wrapped in cardboard to protect them for shipping. You're going to need to buy a nice block or magnetic strip to store these. You might be able to get plastic sheaths for these at a place like BB&B which IMO should work fine, but it's not the recommended solution.

hogleg wrote:I didn't buy shun, and this is why:

Razor sharp is awesome. Light is great. They look like a dream.

They are also so incredibly hard that if you abuse them or even make a mistake, you will chip them, and there goes your $150 knife.

If you feel comfortable that you won't nick a bone (in the food or your hand) then shun are the bidness. If you don't cut food with hard pits or seeds, and the hardest thing you will ask this knife to cut is an acorn squash, then you are EXACTLY who this knife is made for.

If you think there is a chance you may chip it; these knives use steel so hard you WILL chip them. Trust me. Take care of them.

My chef knife is a Messermeister (very underrated and therefore pleasantly inexpensive) meridian elite. It is almost a hybrid; lighter and sharper (15 degree edge is standard) than german but german steel, so while it won't hold that fantastic edge as long, it's more forgiving and less likely to chip. I also like a slightly heavier knife and the shuns are very light and very sharp...very dangerous if you don't have good fundamental knife skills.

If you didn't buy any Shun knives, then how can you make claims about how easy they are to chip? If you are citing claims by others, it would be good to point that out.

I've been using one 8" chef's knife for six years and a 10" for a year. I don't baby them, other than washing and drying them after every use, and there are no chips in them. I've cut all kinds of things with them, including big blocks of chocolate by pushing down hard on the spine.

You make it sound as if they are going to come apart if they touch something hard, and that's not been my experience.

The Shun knives are steel, not ceramic. They aren't brittle. They are sharp. Mine are well balanced.

(I dropped a Kyocera ceramic knife on the floor last week and it didn't break or chip, either, but I'm going to try to avoid a repeat. I figure I was just lucky.)

essemar wrote:I received these with the blades wrapped in cardboard to protect them for shipping. You're going to need to buy a nice block or magnetic strip to store these. You might be able to get plastic sheaths for these at a place like BB&B which IMO should work fine, but it's not the recommended solution.

You can also buy magnetic sheaths, which I use when transporting knives (the 10" Shun Classic Chef's came with its own plastic sheath).

When using a magnetic knife strip it's a good idea to remove a knife by grabbing the handle and rotating the edge off the strip before pulling it off. If you just grab the handle and pull the spine is going to come off first, rolling the edge on the strip. It may not doing any real damage, but it's easy enough to avoid the potential.

Ikea sells magnetic knife strips in different styles and colors, but cheaper ones (usually with black plastic bodies) can be found at restaurant supply stores. I got a 24" one for about six or seven bucks.

fredrinaldi wrote:do these have protectors, so the blades don't hit each other and dull in the drawers?

As noted above, I use a magnetic knife strip at home, but, when I carry knives (usually to help cook when I know they don't have any decent knives, I use these Victorinox knife covers. They are reasonably priced and stay closed tightly, even on small knives.

There is also a Shun cover at Amazon.com, but it is $20 for one, and these work.

craigthom wrote:If you didn't buy any Shun knives, then how can you make claims about how easy they are to chip? If you are citing claims by others, it would be good to point that out.

I've been using one 8" chef's knife for six years and a 10" for a year. I don't baby them, other than washing and drying them after every use, and there are no chips in them. I've cut all kinds of things with them, including big blocks of chocolate by pushing down hard on the spine.

You make it sound as if they are going to come apart if they touch something hard, and that's not been my experience.

The Shun knives are steel, not ceramic. They aren't brittle. They are sharp. Mine are well balanced.

(I dropped a Kyocera ceramic knife on the floor last week and it didn't break or chip, either, but I'm going to try to avoid a repeat. I figure I was just lucky.)

I have owned one. And I chipped it. Probably because I'm not a pro. Which is why I actually said If you know what you're doing buy one. In my opinion, for a steel knife, they have a brittle edge. Probably not like ceramic, but all the ceramic knives I've had are too light for my comfort, so I didn't really compare that.

Just saying.

You can sharpen the santoku (I do sharpen mine at home) but you have to use the Japanese technique for sharpening it...or screw with the edge in a sharpener.

tobuns wrote:Perfect(ly wierd shaped) paring Knife = Can't sharpen at home
Serrated Utility Knife = Can't sharpen at home
Hollow-Ground Santoku = Can't sharpen at home

I know Shun offers sharpening (for now) but you have to plan ahead and send them in (along with postage) Personally, I'd pass on anything I can't sharpen using a whetstone.

fredrinaldi wrote:do these have protectors, so the blades don't hit each other and dull in the drawers?

No. I'd suggest a block or a knife block drawer insert.

I got no problem spending $200 for some excellent knifes, But really you can't provide a protector for than $$
Pass, I'll stick with Wine Woot.

If Honor takes a pass on true love in order to keep the worst movie of a generation off of the youtube screens, then I suppose she is to be commended for her sacrifice. XD

tobuns wrote:Perfect(ly wierd shaped) paring Knife = Can't sharpen at home
Serrated Utility Knife = Can't sharpen at home
Hollow-Ground Santoku = Can't sharpen at home

I know Shun offers sharpening (for now) but you have to plan ahead and send them in (along with postage) Personally, I'd pass on anything I can't sharpen using a whetstone.

I just wanted to clarify that, yes, you can actually sharpen all of these knives at home once you learn how to do it properly. Yup, even that serrated knife.

As an example, I own multiple Shun knives, other cheaper German steel knives, and one or two (I can't remember) non-fancy Japanese knives. Japanese steel (for the most part) tends to be more brittle, yes, but a good knife should not be so brittle that you have to seriously baby it. I use my knives at work every day, and a little honing in between sharpening keeps them sharp and ready all the time. Plus, I have yet to chip any of my knives. I sharpen ALL of these knives on a Japanese waterstone. You can get fancy and go from super low (200/300 etc. for really re-sharpening/cutting) to super high grits for a fine polish (the most that I've ever done is 10,000). Ideally, after sharpening, you take your knives to a ceramic honing rod (or even a ceramic mug/plate), and finish it on a leather strop for the whole meal deal. But, I usually just re-sharpen on a 1000 grit stone, hone on my ceramic, and that's it. With that same ceramic honing rod, you can (re)sharpen your serrated knife by going through each serration individually. It's time-consuming, but if you buy a knife that you love and/or use a lot, it's worth the time and effort. (Also, YouTube has quite a few, really great, knife-sharpening tutorials for those of you who don't know how to do it.)

Got mine in today, look impressive but I have nothing to cut