After stumbling across a blog post about how big brand kitchen products and appliances are mostly just hollow shells with little to no integrity, I found that same blogger/journalist has a robust list of brands that haven’t gone the way of capital sell-outs that goes way beyond kitchen utensils.
It’s worth taking a look at the list as well as the articles. The articles are conversational, but with lots of links to the source material.
Lol. I love that Cutco is on this list, despite them having such a bad reputation.
I sold those knives as my sole source of income for about a year. That was about 25 years ago.
I also happen to be a welding and metal fabricator and went to a two year trade program for it, have collected pocket knives most all my life, and as a hobby I sharpen knives and straight razors. Also, I’ve worked several other sales jobs besides Cutco.
All the hate they get is mostly from people who sold them or know someone who sold them, and it’s pretty deserved. Their main tactic is to bring in naive kids with no sales experience and get them out selling to friends and family, and letting them then fizzle out before they make enough sales to earn big commissions on their sales. Very few people can get past that barrier. Setting up appointments and scheduling and selling to what turns into total strangers in their own homes all together is just a set of skills that needs to be trained into and also naturally gifted at. Then, traveling around and doing all the appointments and keeping it all organized and dealing with cancellations all kind of sucks. Even if you make enough money like I managed to, the job wasn’t worth it. I went into advertising sales after I quit there.
The knives themselves (which is why I mentioned all that non sales crap above) are great looking knives that hold up for ages (I’m still using my 25 year old knives, they get tossed in the dishwasher, and they still look great) without much fuss, but they are overpriced for how they’re made. They’re high nickel stainless steel full tang stamped knives with a high quality plastic handle. They will continue to look shiny and new, they’re dishwasher safe, and they have a fantastic and easily useable warranty, but the steel is cheap for the cost of a set. It’s great for people who want pretty and easy to care for, at the expense of a good set of knives you’ll have to wash by hand and wipe dry.
The steak knives will last forever, the straight blade knives like the chef knife and butcher knife will last forever if you know how to sharpen them, and the bread knife will last forever. The other few knives that use their serrated looking edges will last several years, but you’ll eventually want to send those back to get them sharpened (free) unless you have the right knowhow to do it yourself.
Their warranty is so bullshit free that you can find some janky trashed ones at a garage sale (I’ve never found a danged set at a garage sale before) and just send them in and they’ll sharpen or replace them all. Like 70 year old company and their warranty has no paperwork or ownership attached. The knives themselves are warrantied.
For the curious, in 25 years ago money, I could sell the homemaker basic set for around $850 and I’d pocket over $400. Commissions got up to like 55% as you kept selling, your commission would permanently increase more and more to that cap and it could actually climb fairly quick. Just most people wouldn’t make more than like 10 sales before quitting.
Ok knives. Last ages. Look great. Best warranty. Very high price .
Dunno why I wrote all this. Guess I was a bit bored and it brought up old memories.
Maybe it was different 25 years ago, but from my experience with them 15 years ago, they were just a standard MLM pyramid scheme, where commissions were based on total sales of anyone you recruited + your own base 5% commission. So it meant it made more sense to recruit people than to sell the knives yourself. You also had to buy your own demo sets.
How much per knife? I don’t need an entire set, I need 1 knife. Maybe 2. A small one and a big one and I use that for everything.
Does sound like a pyramid scheme through.
Like a chef’s knife and a pairing knife? Way too much money to be worth it. Probably like $300 or more.
I could recommend someone with money to burn wanting a nice display set of knives as they host dinner parties getting a set of these in the block. They look “pretty” and work well. I would never tell anyone to just buy one or two of their kitchen knives. If you aren’t going to match, you can find other knives with better balance that are a lot cheaper. You can go check, though. I’m pretty sure Cutco has a website you can order from now.
Think I will stick with my current knives then. Around £20 or so for the small ones, maybe twice as much for the big one.
Do need to sharpen them at some point. Probably could do with a decent sharpening stone too. Have thought of just smoothing a stone tile/brick and using that as one.
if you want to learn how to sharpen by hand on stones, buy a “sharpal 162N double sided diamond stone” and then get a leather strop on a wooden block and put some chromium oxide on the strop.
If you want easy without learning how to sharpen by hand, get the “Work Sharp MK2” electric knife sharpener.
Most everything else besides those setups are way more expensive, a rip off, or take too long to use.
As someone who inherited a set, so came by them for free, I think they are indeed quite nice and all look like new. The handles take some getting used to but yeah, they’re fine. They’re good knives if you just get them second hand.
Lol. For sure. Or if you work for them you can get a bunch for pretty cheap :-p
I got a few of their non standard things I still love, like their peeler and their fishing knife.