Today Soba Master, Fugu Senpai and I went on a field trip to check out a new knife shop. I mentioned before that a restaurant has personal connection with a chosen knife store and buys all their knives from there, so it's a relationship coveted by said store. We're in the courting stage now. My school knives are laughable compared to the professional thing, so today's trip ended up in my ordering one custom knife and purchasing another 薄刃 (usuba, vegetable knife). The usuba set me back ¥24000, or about $240 USD. That's a mid-grade knife price; my superiors' knives run about $400 apiece. It's basically a training knife. You can see in the second picture how much bigger it is than my old knife. It's a 7.5 寸 compared to my old 6 寸 (寸, 'sun' is an old Japanese measurement still used by knife stores). It's also square-ended, which is Kanto style. My old one was Kansai style and it embarrassed me a little to use it in Tokyo.
I was really lucky to be invited along on this trip. Those who just walk into a shop will not get the best of the best; you have to be introduced properly with real connections, like in the Mob. One of the main reasons for me to go along today was to show my face and be introduced formally with the support of my restaurant. That counts more than money in these old-school circles.
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