Carbon Steel

These are CARBON steel, NOT stainless, so in general this means they'll take an edge easily and keep it longer than an equivalent stainless steel knife, BUT they will rust and turn black and pit more easily, so you'll need to take extra care to keep they dry and stored properly. And you should avoid acidic foods with these knives: if you must cut something like a lemon, you must wash and dry the blade immediately... the blade can turn black and it can discolour the food you're cutting too. But with all this said, these will in general still cut like no stainless knife ever could! And NO, despite the fact that many makers claim that their stainless steel knives are "high carbon", this term is really just a made-up designation and means nothing... it just means that there is carbon in the steel, but it's NOT what one would normally consider a "carbon steel knife" so it's still just "stainless" for all intents and purposes.
Note: I have not put the traditional Japanese carbon steel knives in this category because they are really a completely different type of knife. Most of these traditional Japanese knives I carry are indeed carbon steel, so please see the Japanese category to see these models.