First, how do you store your knives? Piled into a drawer? Not good. In a butcher block? Yes! I have a knife block that sits in a drawer. I don’t like things cluttering my countertop.
Figure out your storage, have good storage so that your knives will stay sharp, and that determines how many you will keep.
Yes, FreeCycle! People will want your knives, and it’ll be better to have them reused / recycled than in a landfill.
At least, if you want to wash your knives every five minutes.
I use paring-style knives for quite a lot of things, often do the dishes just once a day, and like to have four or five of them. I should hit a used-goods store; one freebie-with-a-seed-order knife broke its blade for no clear reason and one nice little second-hand one got its handle eaten by the dog. (At least he didn’t cut himself; he must have only chewed on the handle.) So right now I’m down to three.
However, @CairoCarol is nowhere near me; and I doubt it’s worth asking her to mail me a few.
While you might want specialty knives if you do a lot of a certain type of cooking. I think a good basic kitchen knife set includes:
A quality long chef knife, 9-10", great for quartering chickens, cutting up a pizza, etc.
A quality medium length chef knife 6-7" (probably be your workhorse knife)
A serrated bread knife
A paring knife
Some quality steak knives (if you eat meat)
I have a lot of cheap knives from early in adulthood, that I’m giving to goodwill
Put all of your knives in a box. If you need a knife, take it out of the box and use it, then put it in a drawer (or knife holder or whatever) after it’s been washed.
After a year, whatever is left in the box can be tossed.
This idea always confuses me.
During meal prep, a quick rinse between ingredients and keep on using is plenty. Everything you touch is raw and is going to be cooked. Any transferance does not matter.
If you prepping something that stays raw after something to be cooked, THEN a quick swipe w your soapy cloth or sponge, then rinse, and keep on cutting.
Have you tried multiplying your collection by its radical conjugate?
I find that a significantly bigger nuisance than grabbing a fresh knife. I like to wash my knives properly, not just make a vague swipe at them with a cloth that, if I’m doing that multiple times during a session, isn’t all that clean itself unless I take time to repeatedly wash it out.
And I may be cooking multiple things that won’t be mixed with each other, and may not want to transfer flavors; as well as prepping raw as well as cooked ingredients. And I’m often cutting off a portion of something and leaving the rest to use later; in which case I don’t want to smear meat on the veggies, and may not want even to smear mayo on the portion of the cheese I’m putting away even if I want it both on the sandwich that I’m making.
And, as (with only me in the house), I’m often not washing dishes more than once a day, multiple meals are likely to be involved as well as multiple things at one meal.
This is excellent advice. You can then decide if you want to upgrade the quality of any of the knives you use regularly.
I don’t have a dishwasher, so that’s not a problem.
As to needing more than one of each type - three reasons:
Still, on a philosophical level you have a point - it reminds me that I probably don’t need to keep TOO many knives.
Taking a completely different, rather tongue-in-cheek train of thought, time is money. Get rid of them all and buy a good quality set of knives of the type you’ll want. I did that the last go-around, when my wife and I married. Tossed all of the lot (mine and hers, other than the serrated bread knife), then went and bought what I wanted, other than one Japanese chef’s knife that was gifted to me, and it’s my favorite. The 10" chef’s knife, an 8" & 10" santoku, the serrated bread knife, and 3 paring knives. Those are all hanging from a magnetic strip on the cabinet over my cutting board. Also have a couple of fillet knives, but they’re stored in their sheaths in a drawer, as they don’t see everyday use.
This is what I was going to suggest. It’s also a good way of paring down clothes.
You can also try putting knives, once cleaned, into a “evaluate again” or “definitely toss” box once you’re done using, instead of putting it into a drawer based on having chosen to use it.
If you’re cooking with a partner, you can both try out each pick and decide where it ends up.
Yes, this will take more time than you want but it seems like having a huge knife collection hasn’t been a problem for a while so keeping a large collection for a while longer shouldn’t be too much of a burden.
Nothing wrong with this. You enjoy collecting knives. That is okay.
People collect weird and useless things- Banana labels, celebrity hair, sugar packets, and worse.
Keep the ones you like best- or all of them.
You need a fillet or boning knife if you are filleting fish or deboning fowl. I also prefer a santoku over a chef’s knife for fine slicing.
Agreed. Knives should be cleaned by hand as they are used, wiping from the spine to the edge for safety. This is both more sanitary (limiting potential for cross-contamination) and safer (no unhoused knives sitting on the counter or in a dishwasher tray), as well as helping to maintain the edge.
Stranger
That eliminates one factor I was going to suggest: keep ones that have dishwasher-safe handles, get rid of the others.
Honestly, group them by type, use them for a few days each, and decide which ones feel best in your hands.
Other factors: the tang (I think that’s the word) going the whole way down the handle, versus partway as with cheaper knives. Look into articles on how to choose quality knives, that’ll help figure out which are the better ones. There are professional knife-sharpening services which can rehabilitate a knife that’s going a little dull, if it is otherwise worth it.
Get rid of the cheap grocery store crap right off the bat. Consider the material as well - I have one carbon-steel knife that is sharp as hell, but hard to take care of; the rest of mine are stainless.
Chop a whole bunch of onions. Whichever knife cuts the easiest and feels the most comfortable in your hand, keep. Throw away the rest.
Ease of chopping an onion is more a factor of the sharpness of the edge than the quality of the knife. A crappy knife that has just been sharpened will cut better than a dull good quality knife.
see if you have a ceramic sharpening rod (those can be had pretty cheap) … if no, then use the “raw” ceramic ring of a plate (the circular part of a plate that actually makes contact with the table).
sharpen the knives on this raw ceramic part (a few swipes at an angle) … the ones that leave a noticable black/anthracite mark on the ceramic set those aside (to be dumped, for soft steel, possibly even sheetmetal) … the ones that hardly leave any marks on the rough ceramic - those are the ones to keep - at least for an eval. of how good the fit, how the geometry is (e.g. flat edge vs. rounded, “belly” edge), etc…
but this could be a criterium to cull 50% of your colection.
also, visually inspect the blades for san-mai (soft-hard-soft steel sandwich of a blade) configuration …maybe you luck out 
best of luck
I don’t want to keep just the minimum. In addition to a few moderately-sized chef’s knives a serrated bread knife, and a set of serrated table knives, I like to have 2 or 3 4" paring knives available for big projects. I use the giant chef’s knife only for chopping open a watermelon or squash. I have a serrated tomato knife that cuts perfect thin slices. I have a small mezzaluna for chopping herbs. My lovely wife also has her favorite knives. They all more or less fit in a drawer.
Dishwashers can be storage space too, ya know🤭
It’s to keep ghosts back. Make it a cold iron one, not stainless steel.