Quote Originally Posted by spopepro View Post
I looked it up further--the plastic handled victorinox is currently $40 on amazon and the wood handle is $50. The $65 is from a nicer knife shop that will give it a high quality hand finished edge as part of doing business (and will also not sell a blade that isn't straight).

It would be really interesting to do this test--both quality out of the box (which can be a really, really big issue with knives, even expensive ones), edge as delivered, cutting performance, ease of sharpening, and ultimately how good you can make each of them with some TLC on the stones. If I wasn't already out of time and behind on caring for my own blades I'd probably even try it.
I wouldn't argue against the Victorinox or Tojiro knives listed, though I haven't owned either. I'd add another inexpensive brand/maker to the list, though. I received this 210 gyuto as a gift and have used it every day for a year. It was sharp out of the box, but I wanted to polish the edge a bit and it's been a pleasure to use. At the same time I polished the edge on a bunka from the same maker I'd been using and gave that one as a gift.