Ever paid MUCH more for a top name brand's product, but it was worse than a cheap version?

In 2006, I was considering what Christmas presents to buy for my brother. I decided upon a kitchen knife set. There were middle of the road 5-8 piece sets for as little as $24. But instead, I decided to buy a 7 piece J. A. Henckels 'Twin Signature' knife set. It cost me $99. I assumed it would be significantly better than the $24 - $35 sets.

My brother insisted on knowing what I'd purchased for him, before arrogantly complaining about my gift..... He claimed that an electric knife would be more useful, so I bought one of them instead and I decided to keep the Henckels set myself.

After just a few months of light use, I started noticing corrosion in the flush mounted rivets that connected the handles to the blade, forming holes about 2mm diameter x 2-3mm deep. That, despite low usage and always being thoroughly dried off when cleaned! But I also noticed rust stains on the allegedly "stainless" blades, which didn't come off easily. The blades weren't particularly sharp from the get-go, and they were ALL very thin!

I've seen cheaper kitchen knives from the 60s and 70s that saw FAR more use, but without the unusual and unjustified pitting, rusting etc. This $99 knife set ended up being of lower quality than sets costing 1/4 as much!

Then, in 2011, I found a Kai Shun classic 6" chefs knife, that has a Damascus steel blade pattern, due to being dipped 24 times in decorative molten stainless steel, then sanded to reveal the individual layers. It listed for about $120, but on closeout sale for $65. I bought it, and It's been a joy to look at and to use, and it still hasn't lost much of its insane sharpness. It came with lifetime free professional sharpening warranty by Shun. I pay shipping to get it there, they sharpen and ship it back for free, for-ever!

Have you ever paid extra for products that ended up being terrible?

As for the knife, I got a Wusthoff from my mil many years ago, and it is a treasure. No idea what she paid for it, don't care. How she got it through the airport, no idea. Every time I use it I think of her.
Granny gave me one of her paring knifes, no brand, just super multi tool. Good for cutting drywall ( it is slightly serrated, you can hardly feel it but it is there), and still cuts ripe tomatoes.
What we paid way to much for is this dagnabbit mattress that is supposed to stay cool. I hate that thing.
Back to the knife, do you rinse after cutting anything remotely acidic?

Office equipment. Especially computers.

I swore by Dell products for years. They were fine and I got what I needed out of them. Then, three years ago, I went to a local shop and had them build a machine for me. It was half the cost of the Dell and had MUCH better performance. The guy actually asked me questions about my business and what I was going to do so he beefed up the parts that needed beefing up and left out stuff I'd never really need.

Lutherf said:

Office equipment. Especially computers.

I swore by Dell products for years. They were fine and I got what I needed out of them. Then, three years ago, I went to a local shop and had them build a machine for me. It was half the cost of the Dell and had MUCH better performance. The guy actually asked me questions about my business and what I was going to do so he beefed up the parts that needed beefing up and left out stuff I'd never really need.

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Same here, I started building or having workstations custom built back in 2005 because nothing available in retail was as good as what a specialist could give me, for less money.
I did relent in 2013 and purchase a nice used HP enterprise grade z-series workstation and still have it, but I went back to custom builders again and I'm glad I did.

First...Damascus is made by folding 2 or more different kinds of steels several times, then grinding down the layers, and finally acid etching.

And yea, I've paid a lot for name brand stuff that was worse than generic. Biggest example these days would be power tools.

Ever paid MUCH more for a top name brand's product, but it was worse than a cheap version?

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No...

Lovebug said:

As for the knife, I got a Wusthoff from my mil many years ago, and it is a treasure. No idea what she paid for it, don't care. How she got it through the airport, no idea. Every time I use it I think of her.
Granny gave me one of her paring knifes, no brand, just super multi tool. Good for cutting drywall ( it is slightly serrated, you can hardly feel it but it is there), and still cuts ripe tomatoes.
What we paid way to much for is this dagnabbit mattress that is supposed to stay cool. I hate that thing.
Back to the knife, do you rinse after cutting anything remotely acidic?

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I'm not a huge fan of tomatoes, so I rarely cut them. As far as cleaning is concerned, I washed the old Henckels knives soon after using them, by hand, and quickly dried them. The small peeling knife was the knife with the most obvious corrosion and pitting to the flush mounted rivets on its handle, but it was also the least used knife! They all sat in my kitchen, in the wood block, on the counter.

KevinKohler said:

First...Damascus is made by folding 2 or more different kinds of steels several times, then grinding down the layers, and finally acid etching.

And yea, I've paid a lot for name brand stuff that was worse than generic. Biggest example these days would be power tools.

Click to expand...

The Shun Classic knives have what's referred to as a Damascus-like appearance. If they were constructed using the actual Damascus technique of 'heating, folding and hammering, rinse & repeat, over and over', they would undoubtedly be much more expensive. But that's unnecessary with these Japanese kitchen knives, because the steel used is treated to be VERY hard.

Damascus steel probably wouldn't be suited to this application anyway, because it's probably best used in applications where toughness is more important than pure hardness. Besides, although they are familiar with the mechanical process of forging Damascus steel, nobody is sure of the original elemental recipe and ratios that were used to make it way back when.

ModerationNow! said:

In 2006, I was considering what Christmas presents to buy for my brother. I decided upon a kitchen knife set. There were middle of the road 5-8 piece sets for as little as $24. But instead, I decided to buy a 7 piece J. A. Henckels 'Twin Signature' knife set. It cost me $99. I assumed it would be significantly better than the $24 - $35 sets.

My brother insisted on knowing what I'd purchased for him, before arrogantly complaining about my gift..... He claimed that an electric knife would be more useful, so I bought one of them instead and I decided to keep the Henckels set myself.

After just a few months of light use, I started noticing corrosion in the flush mounted rivets that connected the handles to the blade, forming holes about 2mm diameter x 2-3mm deep. That, despite low usage and always being thoroughly dried off when cleaned! But I also noticed rust stains on the allegedly "stainless" blades, which didn't come off easily. The blades weren't particularly sharp from the get-go, and they were ALL very thin!

I've seen cheaper kitchen knives from the 60s and 70s that saw FAR more use, but without the unusual and unjustified pitting, rusting etc. This $99 knife set ended up being of lower quality than sets costing 1/4 as much!

Then, in 2011, I found a Kai Shun classic 6" chefs knife, that has a Damascus steel blade pattern, due to being dipped 24 times in decorative molten stainless steel, then sanded to reveal the individual layers. It listed for about $120, but on closeout sale for $65. I bought it, and It's been a joy to look at and to use, and it still hasn't lost much of its insane sharpness. It came with lifetime free professional sharpening warranty by Shun. I pay shipping to get it there, they sharpen and ship it back for free, for-ever!

Have you ever paid extra for products that ended up being terrible?

Click to expand...

Yes, kitchen knives!

Seems we had similar experiences with J. A. Henckels knives. I bought a set and really always hated using them - unbalanced, unwieldy, terrible handle, just a chore to use. For some reason I kept them for a decade or more. Bought a Victorinox 8" chef's knife recommended by America's Test Kitchen as sort of a placeholder till I found something better, and it's just a fantastic knife, for about $40. Other than the joy of owning a luxury-level knife for the craftsmanship, there's no reason to buy anything more. Came sharp, easy to keep 'will slice thin strips from the newspaper sharp,' I love the balance, functional. I have a Santoku Wusthof that I loved and still use occasionally, and a Wusthof paring knife that I use frequently for fruit and small chores, and those were $100 or so each, but 90% or more of my cutting now is with that $40 knife. Everything else but an old Chicago Cutlery boning knife ($10) sits in the knife rack unused...

ModerationNow! said:

Have you ever paid extra for products that ended up being terrible?

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Keurig is another. Can't believe we used one for years...

It's not really a fair comparison, but someone on DP recommended the Aeropress (about $30) and it makes far and away, not even close, the best coffee I've ever made at home, and the filters are something like $5 for 350 filters. One try and I never touched the Keurig again. It's in a closet now after my wife converted when I made a 'latte' with the Aeropress. eace

Decent knife + proper sharpener = great

FWIW, I've used the same set of Henckels Pro knives since college. AFAIK, yours and my knives differ, as go home cook's needs, mainly in the design of the blade guard. The Signature line lacks a blade guard to speak of.

My knives neither look nor perform differently now than they did when I first bought them. I use them all the time, for all sorts of things -- flaying, breaking down and filleting (chicken, turkey, lamb, rabbit, fish) animals, cutting string, cutting flowers, opening envelopes, etc....if something needs to be cut through and my knives are the closest thing at hand, I'll use them to cut it -- and after every use, I use the sharpening steel to restore their cutting edge. That said, what I cut with my knives has nothing to do with their staining.

My cooking knives, along with my eating utensils (they're sterling), are the only kitchen implements I never put in the dishwasher. Have you washed yours in the dishwasher? If so, residual chlorine from whatever detergent you use in your dishwasher is what I suspect is causing the oxidation you're observing. (See also: "What Exactly Is in Dishwasher Detergent?") Knowing that dishwasher detergents contain chlorine (and other corrosive chemicals) is one of the reasons Henckels doesn't recommend putting their knives in the dishwasher. (Another corrosive, ammonia, can also cause the discoloration/corrosion you've observed. Do you periodically use an ammonia-based cleanser to dust/wipe the knives? Maybe your maid does?[SUP]1[/SUP])
There's a good chance that you can attenuate the problem by regularly using your knives. Believe it or not, just by dint of your hand and foodstuffs encountering the blade and steel elements of the handle will remove whatever corrosive residue may be left behind from putting the knives in the dishwasher, thus preventing them from remaining long enough on the knife to allow corrosion to occur. Using the knives and hand-washing them also will eventually remove the discoloration.[SUP]2[/SUP]

Indeed, when folks ask me to cook something and I have to do so in their kitchen, I take my chef's knife with me because the only thing I absolutely must have when I prepare food is a sharp and well-balanced knife. (The latter isn't hard to come by; the former depends on how well one maintains one's knives.)

Henckels knives are like many other high-end items: though one uses them the same way one uses "standard" stuff, care and maintenance is usually different and it's important (because nobody wants to keep replacing pricey items) to heed the differences....unless, of course, one doesn't care. That difference generally means one must use different resources (time, effort and/or money) to maintain high-end goods. To wit:

• Cars: If one wants comfortable and easily owned transportation, a Camry, Accord or Avalon is an excellent choice; however, if one demands some stripe of exceptional automotive performance traits (speed, power, or handling), or an indulgent or esoteric gizmo/feature, well, fine, buy a high-end car that offers them. But one'll use more resources more to buy and own the high-end car.
• Coats: The reason to buy a sable coat is partly because it's warmer than a wool one, weighs less than a wool coat providing the same degree of warmth, and it won't matter if one gets caught in the rain or snow. They're both coats, one's warm either way, but the care and maintenance of the two are very different. The same variability of care and maintenance resources applies to down coats vs. either of the other two types I noted.

Note:

1. Household staff generally mean well, but their meaning well doesn't necessarily mean they are knowledgeable about the care of high-end items. For instance, my housekeeper maintains my footwear. When she first began working for me, she knew the basics of shoe polishing, and she was quite capable of making my shoes look good, but she wasn't aware of how to care for shoes so as to minimize/avoid harming the leather itself. I had to teach her how to clean and polish shoes (and other leather items) so as to not-clog the pores and hasten the leather's desiccation and cracking. Too, I had to teach her how to care for white bucks and suede.
2. It's worth noting that not all stainless steels are "created equal." Besides the preceding link, see: Rolex now uses 904L stainless steel rather than another grade of stainless steel.

JasperL said:

Yes, kitchen knives!

Seems we had similar experiences with J. A. Henckels knives. I bought a set and really always hated using them - unbalanced, unwieldy, terrible handle, just a chore to use. For some reason I kept them for a decade or more. Bought a Victorinox 8" chef's knife recommended by America's Test Kitchen as sort of a placeholder till I found something better, and it's just a fantastic knife, for about $40. Other than the joy of owning a luxury-level knife for the craftsmanship, there's no reason to buy anything more. Came sharp, easy to keep 'will slice thin strips from the newspaper sharp,' I love the balance, functional. I have a Santoku Wusthof that I loved and still use occasionally, and a Wusthof paring knife that I use frequently for fruit and small chores, and those were $100 or so each, but 90% or more of my cutting now is with that $40 knife. Everything else but an old Chicago Cutlery boning knife ($10) sits in the knife rack unused...

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The chef I know really well swears by Victorinox, but then she's also Swiss. LOL She thinks Henckels and Victorinox pro-grade knives are equally good as cutting implements. She says how they feel to use is what should drive one's decision to buy one or the other...Or, if one can't form a preference, buy the less expensive one. She said she bought Victorinox knives because at the time she bought them, they were notably less expensive than the comparable Henckels model. (That was 40 years ago. I have no idea whether the price differential remains as it was.)

ModerationNow! said:

The Shun Classic knives have what's referred to as a Damascus-like appearance. If they were constructed using the actual Damascus technique of 'heating, folding and hammering, rinse & repeat, over and over', they would undoubtedly be much more expensive. But that's unnecessary with these Japanese kitchen knives, because the steel used is treated to be VERY hard.

Damascus steel probably wouldn't be suited to this application anyway, because it's probably best used in applications where toughness is more important than pure hardness. Besides, although they are familiar with the mechanical process of forging Damascus steel, nobody is sure of the original elemental recipe and ratios that were used to make it way back when.

Click to expand...

Actually, they HAVE discovered some of the original "recipes", but yeah, with today's higher quality steels, Damascus is a style choice, more than functionality.

Personally, I LOVE the way a good ladder style Damascus looks. Calpholon makes a decent looking Damascus knife set...forget the name, but it holds up to commercial use...I've personally put it to the test. Katana, I think it's called.

JasperL said:

Yes, kitchen knives!

Seems we had similar experiences with J. A. Henckels knives. I bought a set and really always hated using them - unbalanced, unwieldy, terrible handle, just a chore to use. For some reason I kept them for a decade or more. Bought a Victorinox 8" chef's knife recommended by America's Test Kitchen as sort of a placeholder till I found something better, and it's just a fantastic knife, for about $40. Other than the joy of owning a luxury-level knife for the craftsmanship, there's no reason to buy anything more. Came sharp, easy to keep 'will slice thin strips from the newspaper sharp,' I love the balance, functional. I have a Santoku Wusthof that I loved and still use occasionally, and a Wusthof paring knife that I use frequently for fruit and small chores, and those were $100 or so each, but 90% or more of my cutting now is with that $40 knife. Everything else but an old Chicago Cutlery boning knife ($10) sits in the knife rack unused...

Click to expand...

I have a Chicago cutlery chef knife. Its very easy to maintain. And cheap.

Mr Person said:

Decent knife + proper sharpener = great

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True that, but the key is you have to regularly USE that sharpener!

I just use a ceramic rod, 10-20 seconds or so as I'm putting them away, maybe once a week or whenever I think about it, and that's enough to keep my knives in good condition unless I mess up somehow and really nick the blade.

HOWEVER....... I ended up buying a Chef's Choice 3-stage electric for my mom and mother in law, because every time I showed up and was asked to cook (often, especially with mom in-law who got too old to cook), the knives were a total wreck and unusable, so first thing I did was run them all through the stages on the sharpener. They never used the dang thing, of course, but at least with a good sharpener I could get to cooking in 10 min or so with really excellent edges on the knives, and leave them with knives that would work OK for a month or two.

My mother in law used a hard plastic, clear cutting board, that after YEARS of use had hardly a scratch on it from the knives. She never could figure out how she trashed the edges on her knives so fast...

ModerationNow! said:

In 2006, I was considering what Christmas presents to buy for my brother. I decided upon a kitchen knife set. There were middle of the road 5-8 piece sets for as little as $24. But instead, I decided to buy a 7 piece J. A. Henckels 'Twin Signature' knife set. It cost me $99. I assumed it would be significantly better than the $24 - $35 sets.

My brother insisted on knowing what I'd purchased for him, before arrogantly complaining about my gift..... He claimed that an electric knife would be more useful, so I bought one of them instead and I decided to keep the Henckels set myself.

After just a few months of light use, I started noticing corrosion in the flush mounted rivets that connected the handles to the blade, forming holes about 2mm diameter x 2-3mm deep. That, despite low usage and always being thoroughly dried off when cleaned! But I also noticed rust stains on the allegedly "stainless" blades, which didn't come off easily. The blades weren't particularly sharp from the get-go, and they were ALL very thin!

I've seen cheaper kitchen knives from the 60s and 70s that saw FAR more use, but without the unusual and unjustified pitting, rusting etc. This $99 knife set ended up being of lower quality than sets costing 1/4 as much!

Then, in 2011, I found a Kai Shun classic 6" chefs knife, that has a Damascus steel blade pattern, due to being dipped 24 times in decorative molten stainless steel, then sanded to reveal the individual layers. It listed for about $120, but on closeout sale for $65. I bought it, and It's been a joy to look at and to use, and it still hasn't lost much of its insane sharpness. It came with lifetime free professional sharpening warranty by Shun. I pay shipping to get it there, they sharpen and ship it back for free, for-ever!

Have you ever paid extra for products that ended up being terrible?

Click to expand...

1990 Jaguar XJS v12 HE

Used but in excellent shape for a Jaguar.

I ended up have more fun in a 2003 Hyundai Accent.