Blades readers should feel free to share a shot of any particular Chinese knife they have and like here. C'mon, I know some of you folks are carrying. I ain't the only one with too much time and money now. Flip it, snap it and share it.
In the meantime here's five Ganzo FH series flippers.
All of which have D2 blades turning on caged ceramics. The FH11 series, the FH21 series, the FH31 series, the FH41 series, and the FH51 series . Each series has variations -- stainless handles, G10 handles, CF handles, satin or stonewash, etc. They all flip very quickly and evenly, and the flippers aren't rough on the fingertip.
So here they are, in ascending order. You can see that they're mostly the same size -- they made the 31 series a little fatter, and the 51 series a little shorter.
The first one of these is the FH13, not the FH11 - I threw it in for variation, but the FH11's nice too with a concave handle scale that's awesome for thumb grip. I prefer the 13 on balance because the handle's a little thinner. I've used this knife a fair bit around the bench -- the balance is hellacious for a budget knife. Fast, no drama flip.
Look at the lines. I don't care who you are, that's some good looking work.
It's D2, traditionally hard to sharpen to a razor edge, but because of this nice grind I can manage it. I can shave paper with the knife, because it really does have a nice lean grind to it.
This is also the only one of the five pictured that's a frame lock -- most of these flippers, and all the rest in the picture, are liner locks.
Next up - the longest one when open, the FH21:
I find this knife to be comparable to the couple of Bestechs I've picked up through Drop just in general terms of how smooth it flips.
I don't feel like taking all five of these apart but as a representative sample, here's the 21 broken down to the point you can see what's inside.
Simple, no frills, but there's a lot of bearings in those nylon cages, which makes for a fast, even flip and a steady pivot with no wobble.
Moving on: The FH31 looks quite a bit different.The front end is a lot more angular.
Next to the others this knife's the odd man out. It's got a lot thicker blade and the blade's just a lot more aggressive looking. But looking closely you can see similarities to the FH21 on the back side.
The FH41 has a handle style that's very similar to the 11 series, but a little streamlined, with a liner lock, and much more of a leaf shaped blade. I think out of the five knives, it's got the nicest lines. Though it has a lower number, it came out after the 51.
Although this knife is probably my favorite out of the lot, it demonstrates one of the two things that most people will ding Ganzos with -- it's got the superior material, but there aren't the corresponding touches you usually get with that material, which can disappoint folks. The thing is? People are used to CF having that 'just so' kind of feel because it usually comes on an expensive knife. This is a production model budget knife handle, and feels like it, so it isn't necessarily fair to compare it to work that costs a lot more, but people will do that regardless just by association. . If your perspective is 'budget work knife' it'll be fine out of the box, but if your perspective is 'that's CF, it should feel luxurious' you're going to want to do a little wet sanding of the edges of the handles here and there and then you'll probably be fine with life again.
The FH51 is smaller, one of only a few small Ganzo knives, which is the second ding on Ganzos. It's a bit more fair than the first one. As awoodby pointed out, it's hard to find small sized Ganzos. This is one of the smallest you can easily find and the blade is still over 3 inches long.
You gotta love that blade though. I think I like the FH41 a bit more but the FH51 is a nice little knife.
So there's five Ganzos, all original designs, all flippers. If you want to test the water and you like flip knives, I'll happily recommend trying any of these. You'll draw your own conclusions, but I think you'll like the build quality for the price.