Cheap ≠ Value

Once we were talking to someone at a mainstream retail behemoth about how they might “punch up their voice” and make it more “engaging and fun”. Yes, this is how marketing people talk. Anyway, we mentioned that we really like the simple, expressive, powerful word “cheap” and this person replied, “We prefer the term ‘value’.”

Let’s leave aside the morphological confusion - “cheap” is an adjective, “value” is a noun, they’re not interchangeable - and address whether the two terms are really just different synonymous ways of saying the same thing.

No.

They are not. This Zwilling 6-Piece Block Set is not the cheapest set of kitchen knives you can find. If you insist on the lowest possible up-front outlay, you could certainly get your hands on a 4" paring knife, 5" serrated knife, 8" chef’s knife, and kitchen shears for less money.

But can you find a better value in a knife set? We really doubt it. When those cheapo knives just won’t cut that last strand of celery, when your salads look all tore up, when the (yes) cheap plastic handles crack apart in your hands, will the extra savings be worth it?

This is the real stuff. Ice-hardened blades forged from a single piece of high-carbon steel. Laser-controlled edges. Riveted, ergonomic handles. Even the storage block is badass. Not even this steep discount can make the Zwilling 6-Piece Block Set the cheapest knife set out there. But if it’s not the best value, tell us what is, so we can buy that for ourselves.