I bought a set of these paring knives for myself and a set for my daughter as a gift. I have been using mine for a couple of weeks now. I really like these knives, especially the Bird's Beak style. I had never owned nor used a knife of this design before and now I don't know how I did without it. It is excellent for coring tomatoes and apples. All of these knives come with a fairly coarse, but very sharp edge. I expected that I would want to finish the edge but after trying them I left them all alone. The coarse edge is very good for getting a "bite" on soft foods such as tomatoes and some fruits and it is plenty sharp enough. I also found the beak knife to be good for boning.
Paring knives are likely to take a a lot of heavy and hard use. I have a couple of expensive, "fancy" paring knives and I have always been overly concerned with accidentally nicking them or dropping them. These knives are relatively inexpensive which makes me less concerned about incidental damage and, after using them, I actually prefer them to my expensive paring knives. These are full tang knives but without a bolster and a bit thinner than my other paring knives. The thinner, unbolstered blade makes them a bit flexible which is, in my opinion, a desirable thing for a paring knife. These are excellent, utilitarian knives and they have become my "reach-for" knives for almost any sort of prep work except chopping or very large jobs. I use them constantly.
