[HN Gopher] No knives, only cook knives
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No knives, only cook knives
Author : firloop
Score : 114 points
Date : 2026-01-17 23:38 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kellykozakandjoshdonald.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (kellykozakandjoshdonald.substack.com)
| darknavi wrote:
| I enjoy seeing glimpse into other people's niche hobbies.
|
| I really enjoy markets like they describe and I've experienced
| them in Asia, but I have no idea where I'd find one in WA State.
| rpearl wrote:
| This niche hobby became https://bernalcutlery.com/ which is a
| fairly successful Bay Area knife store
| eps wrote:
| They also have an excellent book, covering both the subject
| matter (knives and sharpening) and how the company came to
| be.
|
| Somewhat similar to the book of the Blue Bottle founder on
| coffee and his company path. Both are basically, as the GP
| remarked, are glimpses into other people's passion and deep
| fascination with a certain subject. Fantastic reads IMO.
|
| * In fact, let me add two more books - Ivan Ramen and Tartine
| Bread. Similar introductions into lives of people and their
| obsessions with a specific subject.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Definitive-Introduction-
| Sharpen...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Bottle-Craft-Coffee-
| Roasting/dp/...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Ivan-Ramen-Obsession-Recipes-
| Unlikely...
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-
| Robertson/dp/08118...
|
| If anyone knows other books of the same nature, I'm all ears.
| voicedYoda wrote:
| I have Tartine bread and this book is incredible
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| I've eaten at the Ivan Ramen in New York and it was
| outstanding.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I find ebay being overpriced if you are into collecting stuff so
| flea markets can be an option if you don't want to overpay.
| b-kuiper wrote:
| i also find, with the arrival of catawiki (more a european
| market?), nice products for regular/normal prices seems hard to
| come by nowadays. Our "local" online market (marktplaats.nl) is
| therefore losing its value, local (town/neighborhood)
| (whats)app groups seem to somewhat take over this roll within
| the digital space.
| jorvi wrote:
| This is a general trend worldwide.
|
| OP's writing is nice, but he is de facto a scalper looking
| for the maximum amount of arbitrage. There's enough of them,
| like mentioned in the article, that they'll pick any flea
| market or secondhand store clean off diamonds in the rough
| before you as a regular guy really get a chance to find any.
|
| What they're doing isn't illegal or forbidden, but it has
| completely destroyed the spirit of flea markets and
| secondhand stores as quaint places. And in response to
| becoming as hypercapitalist as the rest of society, a large
| contingent of people on flea markets has started to offer
| whole tables stuffed with cheap AliExpress / Temu crap. Or AI
| art being sold as "handmade".
|
| The enthusiast offering artisanal coffee or lemonade or
| cinnamon rolls from his stall or food truck has quadrupled
| his prices, because if everyone else is gouging the visitor,
| why shouldn't he?
|
| The same goes for secondhand clothing stores. They're wise to
| the scalpers looking to flip stuff on Vinted or whatever, so
| they have also doubled or even tripled their prices. It's an
| open secret that a lot of stores let the girls working there
| have a first lookover of whatever comes in.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| > There's enough of them, like mentioned in the article,
| that they'll pick any flea market or secondhand store clean
| off diamonds in the rough before you as a regular guy
|
| Usually the flea markets is open to everyone, it's just
| that the 'regular guy' is not motivated enough to come
| early. There is nothing you find you cannot if you show up
| at the same time.
| jorvi wrote:
| No normal person is getting up at 05:30 to go to a flea
| market.
|
| Like I said, they're not doing anything forbidden, but
| they've completely demolished the vibe of something
| formerly quaint.
|
| Imagine if I went to a hippie festival, bought trays and
| trays of cake from the food truck, then walked them two
| blocks over to the fancy neighborhood and started
| flipping them for triple the price. Word gets out, and a
| few years later the food truck has raised its prices
| significantly and then the rest of the festival follows.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| > No normal person is getting up at 05:30 to go to a flea
| market.
|
| Of course there are, just go at that time and check. I
| know because I am one of them. 05:30 is not particularly
| early, and if you have a specific niche or quality
| standard and not just only a bystander, you know that is
| the only way.
|
| I am also not sure why you believe this trend is new. The
| diamonds as far as I know have always been found very
| early.
| jorvi wrote:
| You're either delusional or just being a contrarian if
| you think being out the door at 05:30 is "not
| particularly early". McDonalds is still serving the
| dinner menu at that point.
|
| And you used to be able to find diamonds in the rough on
| flea markets, secondhand stores and even on online places
| like eBay, until 2013ish. That's when the professional
| reseller became more and more pervasive.
|
| Since you seem to think that flipping and scalping is a
| valuable addition to society, we have nothing to discuss.
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| > You're either delusional or just being a contrarian if
| you think being out the door at 05:30 is "not
| particularly early"
|
| Have you never fished at the dawn, hiked for a sunrise,
| spent the night watching the stars? I think you may try
| to expand your horizon about other people hobbies.
| kgwgk wrote:
| "05:30 is not particularly early [to go to a flea
| market]"
| sejje wrote:
| Folks here often have almost no experience outside of a
| city, so that list reads to them like "things a peasant
| would do in the dark ages "
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Apparently not. If I want to take nice (or naughty)
| pictures in a beautiful location (nature, urbex, or
| whatever) without anyone else around, getting up early is
| key. Going out at 4:30 to catch the first bus and hike an
| hour, or ride a bicycle somewhere just to get there by
| sunrise: no problem coffee won't fix. It's worth it too.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > You're either delusional or just being a contrarian
|
| As _kgwgk_ points out [*1], the proposition wasn 't
| "5:30AM isn't particularly early", but rather "5:30AM
| isn't particularly early _to visit a flea market_ ".
|
| Despite being US-centric, this is also an international
| forum, values may differ. I initially assumed the market
| was French/European when they mentioned looking for
| vintage culinary knifes.
|
| > Since you seem to think that flipping and scalping is a
| valuable addition to society, we have nothing to discuss.
|
| Not interested in good-faith discussions of differing
| viewpoints?
|
| I'm not going to downvote you, but I think this is pretty
| narrow-minded for a discussion forum like this.
|
| [*1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46667560
| SoftTalker wrote:
| "Morning person" is actually a thing. My MIL gets up at
| about 4:30.
| paganel wrote:
| > 05:30 is not particularly early,
|
| 5:30 is particularly early, especially when it involves
| normal people's hobbies.
|
| > and if you have a specific niche or quality standard
| and not just only a bystander,
|
| This is what the OP was saying, that this space has been
| been invaded by scalpers, people who do tend to have
| higher "quality standards" because it's in the nature of
| their "job", they've become aware that the higher quality
| stuff sells for more so that they're actively chasing it.
| bluGill wrote:
| Flea markets were always this way. Even in the 1970s,
| probaply before but I'm not old enough to know people who
| did it.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| As a seller, I would rather sell to a reseller than not
| at all.The reseller does provide me a kind of service in
| return by finding me a buyer.
|
| If I'm selling at below market prices I'm effectively
| giving money to the buyer and perhaps I'm upset that this
| money goes a professional rather than someone "in need"?
| Even so I'm not sure the reseller isn't also in need.
| Presumably this is their livelihood. They probably aren't
| super wealthy if they are scanning flea markets at
| 5:30am.
|
| I don't know about your festival example. Sounds like the
| festival realised that they could charge more and did
| that. I think this happens all the time without any need
| for cake reselling.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| They've effectively outsourced the work - they are paying
| this guy to get up at 5:30AM on their behalf. You go
| shopping for yourself, he goes on behalf of his
| customers.
|
| > they've completely demolished the vibe of something
| formerly quaint.
|
| I think you mean overlooked. Well, it's in the spotlight
| now, and gotten popular. More busy, less calm, less
| 'quaint'. The market exists for (as a result of) the
| sellers, of they are happy, consider that the target
| demographic has just shifted, and you are no longer it.
|
| > Imagine if I went to a hippie festival..
|
| What is a 'hippy-festival', does it imply some kind of
| values shared by the seller, or is that just a
| description of the usual buyer?
|
| Feels a bit like the glass-makers fallacy.
|
| Why can't the food truck do the same? Why do they need to
| go to the 'fancy neighbourhood' if the food truck can
| raise their prices in their current location (festival)?
| Do you think the food truck sellers believe this is a bad
| thing? Should the food sellers be prevented from earning
| more so that you can pay less - and surely the food truck
| sellers _could_ continue charging less if they wished?
| Unless the festival organisers started charging them
| higher fees.
| allreduce wrote:
| In general, if you want to do something you more often than
| not have to compete nation or even worldwide. It makes
| markets more efficient in the minds of some economists, but
| makes creating or finding valuable things fucking
| exhausting.
| Loughla wrote:
| My local area used to be great to find old used
| woodworking tools for cheap. I stocked my shop and would
| occasionally restore and resell a tool or two when I
| needed to buy something bigger for my shop.
|
| Then somebody posted about it on fucking Facebook. Now
| ragged out used tools sell for more than new price, and
| the buyers are always from cities 5+ hours away here to
| take advantage of the low prices since us country
| bumpkins don't know any better.
|
| Used tools were a nice way for young people to get
| started in the hobby. Now they're too expensive for that
| to be realistic.
| chongli wrote:
| You can find those things on eBay now. Yes, they're
| expensive, but that's because the exhausting work of
| combing flea markets and estate sales has been done for
| you, so that value has been priced in.
|
| What people are really complaining about is that the
| hobbies of thrifting and collecting have been overrun by
| professionals. That's going to suck for any hobby that
| involves buying and selling.
| 0ckpuppet wrote:
| Is it really scalping? I have more interest than knowledge
| of what makes a good cookung knife. I could pay him for his
| knowledge and get a good and useful knife, or I could guess
| my way through half a dozen trips to the flea market with
| weeks of trial and error usage. Yes, one is a solution and
| the other is a journey, but if I'm committed to this
| particular journey, surf's up at 5:30 a.m.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Is this really scalping? He's getting up early, using hours
| of his time and knowledge to select good knives, cleaning,
| repairing, sharpening then providing a selection of good
| knives for others to buy.
|
| If you just want a decent knife I'd say he offers a good
| service that is cheaper and less risky than spending a day
| or more doing it yourself.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| It's close enough to scalping.
| _vertigo wrote:
| He produces value by refining a raw resource. I don't
| want to go to the flea market on my Sunday morning, maybe
| I'll pay his markup.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| He reuses (or rather, rehomes) too by finding buyers for
| cleaned and sharpened knifes of good quality. That's a
| plus from an environmental viewpoint.
|
| I dislike scalping where no real value is added to the
| service provided beyond getting there first, but this guy
| uses his skills to pick out good knifes, does quality
| assurance and presumably sharpening, and sells them with
| the ability to inform buyers about the type of knife and
| its intended use.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > The enthusiast offering ... because if everyone else is
| gouging the visitor, why shouldn't he?
|
| Or because the fee they pay (food truck licence,
| parking/market fee, tax, etc) is already priced as such so
| they have little choice. In my country, rent is very high,
| _that 's_ why coffee is so expensive (and coffee places
| struggle to stay afloat) - the stores compete heavily, but
| the landlord extracts most of the value.
|
| > The same goes for second-hand clothing stores.
|
| Isn't giving "the girls" first look / priority morally the
| same? The 2nd-hand stores wise to this could just as easily
| advertise on vinted, no?
|
| Describing all of this as 'hypercapitalist' seems
| hyperbolic to me.
| convolvatron wrote:
| The booth fee at the sf flea market is $50. However you
| have to have a business license with the city (used to be
| around $35/yr) and register with the market in advance
| mgaunard wrote:
| French knives are far behind Japanese ones, be it in metallurgy
| or design.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Agree. There is a whole industry in Japan around knives that is
| much bigger than the French one.
| tclancy wrote:
| Pfft. The knives in my kitchen are all original Damascus steel
| I use them to make food from recipes that were lost to time as
| well.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I love that all my food now tastes of rust and light oil.
| tclancy wrote:
| Just you wait for the next set of FDA recommendations! We
| are ahead of the curve I tells ya.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I suppose I need to get my heavy metal intake so I too
| can have a beautifully powerful singing voice, Just like
| RFK Jnr
| giardini wrote:
| Yeah, My kitchen knives were once auto leaf springs. Soak
| 'em in the olive oil after use to keep the rust down (the
| knives, not the leaf springs). Arrr.
| mgaunard wrote:
| Free iron supplements, that's stuff is good for you.
| salomonk_mur wrote:
| If you haven't got a few Mithril knives then you are no
| connoisseur at all.
| giorgioz wrote:
| Guys guys please. Adamantium knives or get the hell out of my
| kitchen!
| nvader wrote:
| Haha, but in all seriousness Adamantium poisoning is no
| joke...
| ansgri wrote:
| There are now inexpensive Japanese-style knives from China. I
| have a couple of surprisingly well-made Xinzuo-branded knives,
| each under $50.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| I got one few months ago. Still haven't even had to sharpen
| it, I'm honestly pretty impressed
| throw0101c wrote:
| For a practical guide to which knives to buy, _American 's Test
| Kitchen_ gives pretty good advice:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st6LggwoL_4
|
| * https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/8204-three-esse...
|
| * Under USD 75:
| https://archive.is/https://www.americastestkitchen.com/equip...
|
| For most daily needs: chef's knife, pairing knife, serated/bread
| knife. Possibly useful 'extras': kitchen shears, petty/utility,
| boning, slicing/carving. They do not recommend sets.
| hylaride wrote:
| I consider good shears to be a daily requirement (they double
| as random available scissors as well). Specialty knives are
| really only worth it if you use it for its intended purpose at
| least once a week. We do have two chef knives as it allows
| simultaneous work to be done with my spouse, though.
|
| More important is learning proper knife skills, including
| maintenance and sharpening. Even the best knives need to be
| taken care of.
| buescher wrote:
| Kitchen shears and a boning knife were "why did I wait this
| long" tools for me.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Especially when I have to prep green beans
| dessimus wrote:
| Kitchen shears but with a 4 ft chain to keep them near the
| sink to wash them, preventing so family stops taking them
| into other rooms and using to open shipping packing, cutting
| clothing tags, etc.
| trueismywork wrote:
| Two kitchen shears. I r for kitchen, one for rest
| aaarrm wrote:
| A pair of scissors for every room is what I subscribe to
| philwelch wrote:
| Equip your entire family with pocketknives.
| m0llusk wrote:
| The swipe against IKEA at the end seems out of place. In my
| experience IKEA knives have decent materials, design, and build
| quality despite the low price point. Maybe this is an artifact of
| the author's focus on resale value? IKEA knives have a low
| initial acquisition cost which contributes to extremely low
| resale prices, but they seem to function well and much better
| than Forgecraft knives.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| No kidding. Most of our knifes are the same IKEA ones we bought
| fifteen years ago. Honing steel, whetstone and the occasional
| coat of oil for the wood part of the handle and they just last.
| I can understand the brand might dilute the resale value
| because IKEA tends to have a broad range of quality/cost in the
| line-up.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Ikea is very heavily a "value for money" company in my eyes.
| Their cheapest furniture in each category is basically
| pressed sawmill garbage but it will withstand everything but
| moving. If you move up in price the stuff actually gets
| better, not just fancier.
| currydove wrote:
| Agreed! I have had an IKEA Slitbar Santoku since 2014, it's
| been abused (even tossed in the dishwasher a couple of time
| because I didn't value it at the time) and it has outlasted
| most of my other knives. Not to mention, it's my preferred
| knife when I pull out my drawer.
|
| So much so, that I went out of my way to get the longer chef
| knife/gyuto version of it off eBay last year! It's freaking
| fantastic! They're both well maintained now, honed often and my
| two go-to knives over a wusthof and bunch of Misen knives
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I had a hell of a time buying a new whetstone for my kitchen
| knives recently. I didn't want to buy online and I also didn't
| want to get ripped off. Walmart and Target had nothing but those
| shitty little widgets you pull a knife through to fuck it up.
| Home Despot and Lowes only had those and also bizarre sharpening
| contraptions that included wetstones but also other nonsense to
| justify bumping the price to north of $50. I finally found what I
| was looking for, just a regular whetstone with no bells and
| whistles, for about $3 at harbor freight.
|
| My conclusion is that very few normies care about edge quality
| and most of those that do are making some sort of hobby out of it
| and want to buy something excessively fancy. See also Japanese
| knives; I'm sure they're very nice but two minutes with a
| whetstone will get any shitty piece of metal sharp enough to cut
| some chicken. There's no reason to overthink this stuff.
| nine_k wrote:
| My no-frills set of two large whetstones (4 grades) cost me
| north of $70 in a pro restaurant store like 20 years ago. They
| are still in a good shape, and can make my knives razor-sharp
| with little effort. Even the knife I bought for $5 in a local
| supermarket.
| metalman wrote:
| no need to overthink is the truth I make a wide assortment of
| edge tools and sharpen them,including damascus, and regularly
| sharpen whatever is dull, drill bits, lathe tools, planer
| blades, etc etc, by hand or with power equipment. And in
| moments of need, like not having a long enough wood bit, I have
| hand ground a long bolt, into a wood bit, no thinking, just
| doing.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| You didn't want to buy online but then were happy with the
| poorest quality stone harbor freight had to offer? That's an
| odd choice.
|
| There are many quality whetstones to choose from and a lot of
| debate on the absolute best. But TLDR, KING is generally highly
| rated:
|
| https://www.hocho-knife.com/king/
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Harbor Freight has random decent stuff. Maybe the whetstone
| was one of them.
| foobarian wrote:
| Curious what your techniques are to keep the angle consistent.
| I've been sharpening manually by always using the same thumb
| position under the blade but there is always a little wiggle
| that bugs me.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| You need to look at professional chefs supply for stuff like
| this, not Walmart or Amazon.
|
| If there's a local community college or trade school with a
| culinary program, they might sell stuff like this or at least
| be able to direct you to suppliers.
| giardini wrote:
| I sharpen my kitchen knives the same way I sharpen my lawnmower
| blades: out front on the curb (mine is concrete). Grind until
| it's sharp. Once I was out-of-pocket but luckily my host had a
| rock garden.
|
| Normies DO care about edge quality but they DON'T care about
| fiddling with fancy "whetstones" and "diamond sharpeners" and
| such. Sharpen it, clean with soap and water, dry and burn it
| (to remove the rabies and typhus) and wipe it down with olive
| oil, mmmmm!
| eh_why_not wrote:
| _> ...and burn it (to remove the rabies and typhus)..._
|
| Elaborate? You heat your knives after every sharpening?
| giardini wrote:
| Sure! Who knows what's on that concrete curb! I'm clean if
| nothing else with my kitchenware. Just pass it over my
| natural gas stove's burner. Treat it the same as you do
| your pocket knife before/after you remove a bullet or shot
| from a wound. Sterile is best!
| eps wrote:
| > _bizarre sharpening contraptions_
|
| https://www.tsprof.eu wants a word
| convolvatron wrote:
| My shop is next to the flea market described in the article, I'm
| really surprised that so many people that live in sf don't know
| about it. It's a really interesting way to spend an hour, and you
| see a really broad swath of San Francisco residents. plenty of
| vinyl, other collectibles, hand tools, antiques, 'antiques',
| ephemera from the 70s, strange old electronics, etc. alemeny near
| bayshore at the farmers market. Every Sunday, pretty much over by
| noon
| pimlottc wrote:
| Which flea market is that?
| quesera wrote:
| Alemany.
|
| I haven't been there in (way) too long, but there used to be
| a great pierogi vendor -- so even on cold rainy mornings (too
| common) you'd at least get some warm delicious breakfast.
| vl wrote:
| The article says you need to show there at 5 am though.
| convolvatron wrote:
| just to get the best pickings. most of this stuff comes from
| storage units.
| JennyWeston wrote:
| my current favorite kitchen scissors / sheers:
| https://www.amazon.com/CANARY-Cardboard-Scissors-Blue-PS-650...
|
| I tried a bunch of kitchen sheers. They lacked leverage. These
| cut bones with ease.
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(page generated 2026-01-18 23:01 UTC)