We have always had decent knives, but never a good knife set with a block. We love these new knives. They are very sharp and well balance. Plan on keeping these in the kitchen forever! Only gripe we have is the block set is just about a 1/4 inch short and has a very small section of the edge exposed. This is easily rectified by having all the knife edges facing inwards. 

The scissors are manufactured in China, but the actual knives are German produced.