Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83918 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Pinzon

Features

• Includes 8-inch chef's, 8-inch bread, 6-inch boning, 5-inch utility, 3.5-inch paring knives; 8-inch slicer; sharpener; and wood block
• Blades forged from a single piece of high-carbon, stain-resistant steel
• Sturdy, steel bolsters; tang extends the full handle length for strength
• Ergonomically designed pakka wood handles with triple rivets
• Hand-washing recommended

Amazon.com Product Description
This wide assortment of Pinzon cutlery easily outfits any kitchen and offers high-quality performance and construction. The sleek set includes an 8-inch chef's knife, 8-inch bread knife, 6-inch boning knife, 5-inch utility knife, 3.5-inch paring knife, 8-inch slicer, sharpener, and storage block.

All of the Pinzon blades in this set are constructed of high-carbon, stainless-steel and have been forged from one piece of metal, then ground and polished for maximum strength and stain-resistance. They boast a full tang, which is triple-riveted to pakka wood handles that are both ergonomic and hygienic. Pakka wood, a treated hardwood, gives each handle a unique color and grain structure. Each knife also features a bolster, the thick junction between the handle and the knife blade, to protect knuckles and provide a counter-balance for better control. The two-tiered block, constructed of glass and rosewood, displays the set beautifully. Hand-washing is highly recommended. Pinzon cutlery is made in China.

What's in the Box
8-inch chef's, 8-inch bread, 6-inch boning, 5-inch utility, 3.5-inch paring knives; 8-inch slicer; sharpener; and block.

Pinzon Packaging
Pinzon products will arrive at your doorstep in a plain corrugated cardboard box. We developed this sturdy packaging to provide you with the best product value we can offer. All items are well packed to avoid breakage in shipping. If you intend your purchase to be a gift, please check the gift-wrap option in your shopping cart on items that offer gift-wrapping.

Customer Reviews

Not worth the shipping
Having been pleasantly surprised by the good quality of Calphalon's thrifty Chinese-made cutlery, I decided to give Amazon's house-brand Pinzon set a try. Amazon's set is a true disappointment in several respects:
1) All of the knives are thickly and crudely wedge-ground with slightly convex rather than flat sides. The chef's knife in particular is very poorly formed with two glaringly obvious areas of excessive grinding on one side near the widest part of the blade. This defect can't be remedied by professional regrinding. The boning knife that should be easily flexible is as lumpishly thick and rigid as all the others. Of all seven tools, only the sharpening steel is well-formed.
2) The handles on several knives are so badly fitted that they're guaranteed to be unsanitary. The chef's knife for example has a nearly 1mm gap between the steel bolster and the wood on one side; the huge gap has been filled with waxy brown filler. The fit between the tang and the handles is so poor that light can easily be seen between the pieces along the whole length of one handle. Even the lowest grade of dirt-cheap Brazilian Tramontina knives is leagues ahead of these in fit.
3) The tang and rivet edges stick out above the wood on all the knives. What caused this shrinkage of the "pakkawood" (resin-soaked hardwood plywood) after manufacture? How much more shrinkage is to be expected?
4) The block is certainly adequate though, right? Wrong. The design IS nice and space-thrifty. Unfortunately the stick of hardwood forming the base is very obviously split along more than half of its length. From the stain in the widest part of the split it's easy to conclude the defect was obvious to the maker also.

Very bad quality overall.

Made to look good, not to use
I am very particular about my knives; I hate having other people use them or mistreat them, and I get very protective about things like how they're stored or cleaned and what they're used on. Living in a household with a roommate and her two children, I decided that instead of getting annoyed each time I found my Global or Henckels knives carelessly tossed into the sink, I would purchase a set of cheap knives for the children to use and therefore allow myself to horde my knives without feeling remorse.

I found these Pinzon knives on Amazon and unfortunately when I bought them there were only a couple of reviews, mostly pretty good. I purchased the set and awaited their delivery. Upon their arrival I checked them out, put them inside their little display case and didn't think too much about it.

When I was making dinner one day, I decided to try these knives out just to see what quality they were. The first thing that shocked me was the thickness of the blade. I never really thought I'd ever call a knife fat, but these were exactly that - these were fat knives. The edges were "ok," it was very obvious that they were roughly machine sharpened and not with a very fine grit. Unfortunately the thickness of the metal was actually obstructing the use of the knife - the knife was so thick that the blade could not cut in a downward slice in a straight line - the blade would actually veer off due to the differential thickness between the edge and the spine of the blade. Imagine taking an Idaho potato, putting the chef's knife at dead center, pushing downward and ending up with a diagonal cut which "leaned" right or left instead of going straight down the center - that's what you get with these knives.

If you're planning on doing some serious cooking with these knives, I would highly suggest saving your money and saving up for a single really good knife instead of this collection of really bad knives. Yes, I can say without a doubt that you will get far more use out of a single 8" chef's knife that costs $50-80 than out of this entire set of really bad knives.

If you only do moderate cooking, I would still say stay away from these knives - they are badly made to the point where I could consider them dangerous. You're not going to have the blade go flying off or shatter into a million pieces, but instead, you're getting a knife that will not cut straight, and that's about as dangerous as you can get.

If you're getting a set of knives that you want to look pretty on your counter, hey, this is a great set for that.

Great Block, Ultra-Cheap Knives
I had been watching this product for about two months, when one day it dropped down to somewhere in the $12.00 range, so I decided to pick it up.

The knives themselves come sharp, but they do loose their edge rather quickly.

My biggest complaint about these knives are they are so cheap they rust if they remain wet for even a short time. I have had two knives which rusted after just one hour of sitting in a bowl in my sink!!

For the price I paid, I feel I got an amazingly well-built knife block. If you can get this for the same price I did, buy it! Then when it shows up, throw away the knives and put your other knives in the uber-cool block!!

This knife block is one of the most talked about items in my kitchen -- folks love the double-glass block design!