I received this as a Christmas gift from my wife in 2015. I am definitely not a Chef or a Knife expert, but I will tell you this, I have never had such an amazing set of knives. Im in my 50's and never bought any nice Knives and wow what a enlightening experience to have such and awesome set of tools for the kitchen. These are like cutting lasers they make any task easy and fun. I have since Christmas bought my meat in bulk and cut my own Prime Rib and Filet Mignon saving a bundle and having the Joy of being my own butcher. When Preparing Dishes and various cooking tasks I eagerly ask my wife to let me do it so I can use the Zwilling's :-) Cook year round on the grill now even when there is snow on the porch. It could be Steak, Salmon, Chicken, Pork, you name it I am going to cut it up with my wonderful knives They are as shop today as the day I received them, I use the sharpener every now and then to keep the edge. I wash them immediately and treat them like fine china and dry them right off and return them to the wonderful block which has room for more of these wonderful tools :-) Next purchase or hopefully Christmas gift is top of the line German Made Steak Knives from Zwilling I Highly Recommend anything sold by Zwilling! I am not a compensated reviewer either! Cheers!