There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
I've gifted a Gesshin Uraku stainless gyuto, but prefer something with thinner edge geometry for my own use. I've also gifted Kanetsugu Pro-M (from JapaneseChefsKnife), Takamura R2 (MTC Kitchen), Tanaka VG10 (price shopping around on ebay), but only in scenarios where I could ensure the initial edge was okay or otherwise to resharpen and add some edge durability before delivering to recipient. And these are less confident suggestions if there is not a good whetstone sharpener nearby or that you know and do mail-in sharpening to.
Semi-annual sharpening seems pretty infrequent though for cooking every day for multiple people