I got a present of this last year, but between much tooing and froing it only arrived today. This is a handmade carving set made by a craftsman called Rory Connor. He is based in Ballylickey, West Cork and he makes the most amazing handcrafted knives.
This is his standard carving set, but I upgraded to Damascene Steel (think samurai sword steel). The handles are made out of snakewood. my standard knife sharpness test is to hold the blade horizontal and drag it laterally over the back of my thumbnail to see if it can lift a small amount of nail material. Well that just won’t work with this knife, it just digs in, its is definitely the sharpest knife I have ever owned.
More photos in the flickr photoset.
Copacetic 
And how much do these knives cost?
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It all depends on the amount of work, kind of steel, kind of wood etc. But start thinking about hundreds of euros….
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Joe, this raises the question of when good enough is good enough. My test for a decent kitchen knife is that it chops onions and *not* my thumb. While we nerds have a bit of a lust for a tool that’s super fit for purpose, really, does chopping onions really warrent hundreds of euros and samarai steel?
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Its not for chopping onions Chris, when you’ve bagged your stag up in the wicklow mountains, you need a really fine instrument to do the carving! 🙂
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Joseph, if you’re off bagging stags in mountains, I still don’t think the carving knife is the first bit of equipment you need. E.g., while the old Doc Martins are ideal for sidling from coffee shop to patio, you should consider sturdier footware. Also, a weapon with a bit more range maybe? 🙂
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