I love these prep knives for the smaller, finer tasks, like deveining shrimp as I did the other night. The super sharp edge cut through channel and, in the Artisan's case, the hammered tsuchime blade didn't drag the meat, it just glided right through. This is an excellent prep knife, great for slicing super thinly. I also like it to clean up meats and poultry -getting rid of the silver skin, the bits of fat. A great prep knife is worth it's weight in gold - no, worth twice it's weight.