Grand Master Ichiro Hattori is now 82 years old. For over 60 years, he has honed his knife making experience and skills, which are acknowledged to be amongst the best in the Japanese knife industry.
He devotes most of his available time and energy to knife making and, in particular, he has he has spent a tremendous amount of time developing his special masterpiece KD Series Cowry X Damascus knives. These are Hattori’s original Damascus knives, created using processes that he invented and perfected through many years of trial & error.
Hattori KD Series kitchen knives were introduced to the worldwide market in the year 1997. Industry experts, knife enthusiasts and professional Chefs soon recognized that these were some of the best premium-quality Japanese kitchen knives available.
Hattori KD Series:
"An Ultimate Masterpiece of Craftsmanship" - these are the only words that adequately describe these remarkable KD Series Chef’s knives, which are custom made by Mr. Hattori for discriminating culinary professionals.
Mr. Hattori is an uncompromising traditional craftsman and he utilizes all of his available energy, passion, and expertise to create these beautiful Chef’s knives, which are made using ancient forging and sword making techniques. Each hand forged blade has a core layer of Cowry X and outer layers of Nickel-Stainless Damascus (SUS440 steel). Cowry X is a tough Powdered Metallurgy tool steel that was specially developed by Daido Steel Company for high-performance cutting tools. It contains a high volume of Carbon (3%) and Chromium (20%), some Molybdenum (1%) and a little Vanadium (0.3%). Amazingly, it can be heat treated to HRc. 63-67 without becoming brittle.
The sturdy black linen Micarta handle fits your hand perfectly, is resistant to water and shrinkage, and is enhanced with a nickel silver bolster and rivets. Each knife comes in a traditional Kiri (Paulownia) wood presentation gift box.
Today, Mr. Hattori is a very well known Craftsman in the worldwide cutlery market. Unfortunately, we regret that his production of KD Series kitchen knives has been very limited since 2008 (Due to Mr. Hattori’s advanced age and reduced fitness) and there have been serious delivery delays. Indeed, many of our customers have been on a waiting list for KD kitchen knives since 2008. We are very sorry about this situation because, even for the customers on our waiting list, there is currently a very limited opportunity to purchase a Hattori KD kitchen knife. Each time Hattori KD Series kitchen knives become available, we will send an advance notice to customers registered on our waiting list. We thank you very much for your continued understanding and all patience about the difficulty of the KD Series kitchen knives.
We sincerely hope that Mr. Hattori’s good health continues, that he can enjoy the rest of his knife making career, and that he can continue to produce beautiful, masterpiece KD kitchen knives. We expect that Mr. Hattori will be able to make a limited number of KD Series kitchen knives in future and we are very proud to be able to offer his final masterpiece KD kitchen knives, and other Hattori Limited Edition knives, to our customers.
In the year 2019, Master Hattori became 80 years old. In Japan, a person’s 80th birthday is commemorated with a special celebration called 傘寿 / Sanjyu. To celebrate his special anniversary year, and his proud achievements as a Master craftsman, Mr. Hattori decided to produce a Special Limited Edition Collection of 傘 "San Series" knives.
We regret that the Hattori KD Series Cowry X Damascus Knives are currently very difficult to acquire and Hattori does not know when they will become available again.
However, Hattori is currently making small batches of special order made, unique, one-of-a-kind knives each year. We would like to introduce these Hattori custom limited edition knives here, on this store page.
