The glut of crap (alleged) Japanese knives hitting the market make me sick.  The market is flooded with them and they're junk.

The latest brought to my attention is the Huusk knife.  Marketing B.S. at its finest.  Google them and click through any of the zillions of hits and get a good look at the knives.  Now go to Amazon and enter the single word huusk into the search box.

BOOM!  Many many knives that all look suspiciously like Huusk.  Hmmm.  Could it be that somebody is flooding the market with this junk under a dozen different front names?  Suspicious.  Notice that nobody claims that they are actually made in Japan.  Don't tell me!  Could this be another China scam?

Anyhow, Huusk just came up on Quora with a thinly veiled scam link and I blasted them.

Following is a copy of their "question" and my response.

What are huusk knives?  How does it work?  Are you looking were to get better kitchen knives?  Go to thereviewtrends.com to get all you need to know about hussk knives. [sic]

John Wegner, Used and collected knives for over 60 years.

Answered 2m ago

This isn’t a real question but I’ma answer these scammers.

You’re promotion methods appear to be to flood the Internet with scammy press releases filled with marketing B.S. and hope you move a bunch of your junk before any real reviewers catch up with you. Just google “huusk knives” and stand by for the avalanche. Notice that every review is exactly the same wording. Huh. Could this be because the sites employ the ancient technique of rip-n-print? (That means they fill their content with junk articles that are provided by manufacturers or promoters.)

Let’s look at the literature:

“The present dominating style is gotten from French and German customs, while Japanese blades, with their more slender cutting edges and bended spines, are gaining more popularity these days. This is the exact reason why Huusk Knife is trending all over the world.”

Well, clearly the copywriter isn’t a native English speaker. Awkward.

“made up of high-quality Japanese steel by ancient blade smiths”

The knives are claimed to be “7CR17MOV” steel. Impressive? No. This is a B.S. number used in China and Japan for sub-$20 crap blades made from the steel known universally as 440A. Cheap. Easy to sharpen because it is soft. In fairness, it does take a nice edge … but not for long.

How are their knives made by “ancient blade smiths”? Are the workers all over 100 years old? Have they resurrected a bunch of dead guys? More horse crap. No. Notice that they don’t say, Japanese blade smiths (or bladesmiths). Guess where they’re really made.

“Japanese samurai-based brand knife”

What is samurai-based? I wasn’t aware that samurai was a knife’s characteristic.

Are you seeing a trend of poppycock marketing here?

Definitely, the most important thing about these knives is, as far as a real chef is concerned, is the deeply deckled (stamped?) surface on the knife spine. Not wanting to have their kitchen shut down by the health inspector because the knives are full of hundreds of ridges, nooks, and crannies where food particles and bacteria can breed, I wouldn’t have these in my kitchen. You shouldn’t either.