So, for uninteresting reasons related to having to do with having had multiple households/storage across the world that has FINALLY coalesced into one home, I have a ridiculous number of knives. Notice I did not say “quality knives.” Just knives.
Now I need to pare down (heh heh) the collection, and I have no idea on what basis to keep or discard knives of similar blade size. Note: I recently acquired an electric knife sharpener, which is awesome. But I don’t know which knives are worthy of it and - other than the obviously flimsy specimens bought in an emergency at a random grocery story - which knives I should not bother to keep.
I never went out of my way to research and acquire high-end knives, so most likely none of the knives are super fantastic quality. (Though I have a Chinese cleaver bought in Boston’s Chinatown circa 1978 that I think is really, really great.)
A lot of the knives don’t seem to be identified by brand, which isn’t very promising. Many of those that are are Henckel, Anolon, or Fusion.
So how do I evaluate? Brand? Weight/heft? Shine? Blade thickness? What the handle is made of? I really don’t know.
Any guidance on “how to tell the difference between a knife worth keeping (and sharpening with your sharpener) versus one that should just go on the local free table” would be appreciated. I need to cut the collection down (heh) by at least one half, maybe two thirds. At the moment I’m staring at an absurdly large collection of random knives.