How much would YOU pay for a nostalgia trip, plus knives?

“Ginsu”. How can such a meaningless word evoke so much nostalgia? Just the sound of it puts us back in front of a flickering, boxy TV, with a couple of crumbly store-brand chocolate chip cookies, impatient for the cartoons to start up again but drawn into a rapid-fire world where there’s always got to be a better way!

Ginsu knives are not some ancient Japanese secret, not a product of the slicing arts of the mysterious East - unless you consider Ohio part of the mysterious East. Their original name, Quikut, was as all-American as Beaver Cleaver. Which meant Quikut was just another knife brand.

It was only when they hit on giving their knives a made-up Japanese name that the company became an icon of hucksterism. (We bet there was a copy of Shogun on at least one desk at Quikut HQ. It was the '70s, after all.) When the commercials became a phenomenon, co-creator Barry Becher translated “Ginsu” as “I never have to work again.”

“How much would YOU pay?” “But WAIT - there’s more!” “Operators are standing by!” The sliced beer can. The deluge of accessory throw-ins. The 50-year guarantee on a printed certificate. The hard-sell gimmicks of the infant Infomercial Age must have seemed obnoxious at the time, but now they just seem quaint, charming, even innocent.

Or at least as innocent as we were back then. Even to a kid who had no particular interest in the products themselves - and that’s pretty much every kid - the huckster’s magic dazzled us into imagining how much more fun life would be if we had that stuff.

Now that you own the credit card in the family, you can scratch that itch. For just six bucks.

These Ginsu knives we’re selling today aren’t the original double-edged ones seen making short work of both beer cans and tomatoes. This is your standard lineup of serrated cooking knives: an 8" chef’s knife, 5" utility knife, and 3" paring knife. If these colored nonstick coatings had been around back in 1977, you can be sure the Ginsu commercials would have made a huge deal out of it.

Are they any good? Maybe, we don’t know. But for just six bucks, here’s a chance to satisfy your youthful Ginsu curiosity. Whether it’s a hit or a dud, you’ll get at least six dollars’ worth of conversation about it the next time you have people over for dinner.