On 25 September 2026 I read the English guides that answer this question first on Google. Every one of them is written by a shop that sells both steels: Hasu-Seizo, Seido, Shimeru, Japan Chef Knife, LeeKnives and a few more. They reach the same verdict in slightly different words. SG2 holds an edge longer, VG10 is easier to sharpen, and SG2 costs more.
All three of those are roughly true. What none of them gives you is the one number that lets you decide: how much more, for the same knife.
That number exists, because one smith in Echizen makes the same knife in both steels. Same shape, same length, same Damascus cladding, same handle, same black finish. The only thing that changes is the core. I lined up every pair the retailer lists, and the premium for SG2 is $116 to $242 a knife, or 32 to 66 percent.
Then I went to the places the English guides do not quote: the company in Fukui that makes both steels, and two knife shops in Sakai that sell SG2 and write about it in Japanese. One of the shops says something about SG2 that you will not find in any English product description.
This is the eleventh piece in a series about the distance between what Japanese knives are called abroad and what they are in Japan. The one before it was about which whetstone grit to buy, and it matters here more than you would expect.
Both steels come from one company, and it publishes very little about one of them
VG10 and SG2 are both made by Takefu Special Steel in Echizen, Fukui prefecture. I covered the company in the piece on Damascus knives, so here is only what matters for this comparison, straight from its own product pages.
VG10 gets a full composition: 1.00 carbon, 15.00 chromium, 1.00 molybdenum, 0.25 vanadium, 1.55 cobalt, and a quenched hardness of HRC 60 and above. The page then says, in Japanese and in its English version, that it has good machinability and is easy to sharpen.
SG2, which Takefu sells as Super Gold 2, gets a description of the powder process, a list of four virtues, and a hardness of HRC 62 and above. In the composition row, every cell reads 非公開. The English version says non-disclosure. There is no sentence about sharpening at all.
Now read the English comparison guides with that in mind. Hasu-Seizo gives SG2 as carbon about 1.25, chromium 14, molybdenum 3, vanadium 2, hardness 62 to 64. LeeKnives gives carbon 1.40 to 1.50 and molybdenum 2.00 to 3.00. Two retailers print two different recipes for a steel whose maker publishes none. I am not saying either is invented. I am saying neither comes from the page of the company that makes it, and the guides do not tell you that.
The hardness on the box is the maker of the knife, not the maker of the steel
Takefu gives a floor, not a range. 60 and above, 62 and above. The actual hardness of the knife in your hand is set by whoever heat treats it, and the knife makers say so without meaning to, because they print different numbers for the same steel:
- Takeshi Saji, VG10 Black Damascus: 60 to 61.
- Yu Kurosaki, VG10 Damascus Fujin: 60 to 61.
- Kanetsune, KC-860 all-VG10: 60 to 62.
- Takeshi Saji, R2 Black Damascus: approx. 63.
The Kanetsune figure and the Saji figure describe the same steel with a two-point spread between their top ends. That is not a contradiction. It is two workshops making two decisions.
Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, a knife house in Sakai that also sharpens customer knives, reports what that decision looks like when it goes the other way. Writing about powder steels like SG2:
この硬度と耐摩耗性で繊細な刃を作ってしまうと欠けやすいのか、研ぎにお預かりする中で少し柔らかく焼きが戻されていたり、刃先に厚みがあったりするものも見受けられます
Perhaps because a fine edge in steel this hard and this wear resistant chips easily, among the knives we take in for sharpening we see some that have been tempered back a little softer, and some that have been left thick at the edge.
Read that as a buyer. A knife can say SG2 on the blade and still have been tempered softer, or left thick behind the edge so it does not chip. You would pay the SG2 price and get something closer to the VG10 experience. The shop sees these on its bench. The product page will never tell you.
The same knife, in both steels
Here is the evidence the English guides do not have. Takeshi Saji is a smith in Echizen. The retailer says he was born in Takefu, the same town as the steel mill, and certified as a traditional master craftsman in 1992. His Black Damascus line is sold at Hocho-Knife in VG10 and in R2, which the retailer and the Sakai shops treat as another name for SG2. Every pair below has the same shape, the same length, the same black Damascus and the same handle. Prices are from Hocho-Knife on 25 September 2026.
- Gyuto 180mm, white antler handle: VG10 $365.99, SG2 $481.99. $116 more, 32 percent.
- Gyuto 240mm, desert ironwood handle: VG10 $459.99, SG2 $642.99. $183 more, 40 percent.
- Gyuto 270mm, desert ironwood handle: VG10 $564.99, SG2 $752.99. $188 more, 33 percent.
- Gyuto 210mm, black micarta handle: VG10 $368.99, SG2 $610.99. $242 more, 66 percent.
- Sujihiki 240mm, white antler handle: VG10 $459.99, SG2 $667.99. $208 more, 45 percent.
- Sujihiki 270mm, desert ironwood handle: VG10 $564.99, SG2 $800.99. $236 more, 42 percent.
- Sujihiki 270mm, black micarta handle: VG10 $543.99, SG2 $782.99. $239 more, 44 percent.
The spec sheets for the 240mm gyuto pair make the trade plain. VG10 at 60 to 61, 240g. SG2 at approx. 63, 245g. About two to three points of hardness, and five grams, for $183. Everything else on the page is word for word the same.
One practical catch: on the day I checked, nearly every VG10 knife in the Saji line was out of stock, while most of the SG2 versions were available. So the cheaper half of this comparison is often the half you cannot buy.
And the same smith, where SG2 is the cheaper knife
Every English guide says SG2 costs more. Yu Kurosaki, another Echizen smith, shows why that can mislead you at the shelf.
Kurosaki makes a 210mm gyuto in SG2 called Senko, and a 210mm gyuto in VG10 called Fujin. Both carry the same handle, octagonal rosewood with a Honduras wood ferrule, under the same handle code. Hocho-Knife lists them at:
- Senko, SG2, hammered, no Damascus: $389.99, 140g.
- Fujin, VG10 core under nickel Damascus, hammered: $529.99, 160g.
The SG2 knife is $140 cheaper. The steel premium is presumably still in there, but on this pair the other differences, chiefly the Damascus cladding on the VG10 knife, cost more than the steel upgrade does. Both were out of stock when I checked, so I cite them as evidence, not as a recommendation.
This is the same lesson as the Damascus piece, seen from a new side. On a Japanese knife, the finish moves the price more than the steel does. If you are paying for SG2, check that SG2 is what you are paying for, and not the pattern on top of it. The same trap exists one step up, with the word honyaki.
What the extra hardness does in a kitchen, according to two shops that sell it
Two knife shops in Sakai sell SG2 knives and have written long Japanese guides to it. They agree on the hardness. They disagree on what it does for you, and both are worth hearing.
Jikko, fourth generation, wrote in March 2024 that SG2 holds its edge longer than VG10, which it names as the ordinary stainless it is comparing against. On sharpening it is reassuring:
硬度が高いため、砥ぎにくいと感じる人もいるかもしれませんが、ハガネの包丁と同じように砥石で砥げます
Because the hardness is high, some people may find it hard to sharpen, but it sharpens on a whetstone in the same way as a carbon steel knife.
Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, in a guide updated in September 2024, is less comfortable. Its warning about hardness alone is blunt:
要は、驚くような値段なのに欠けやすく研ぎにくいという包丁が出来上がってしまいます
In short, you end up with a knife that costs an astonishing amount and yet chips easily and is hard to sharpen.
It names SG2 as one of the powder steels that avoids that trap, and still adds that SG2 does not bite the stone easily and takes getting used to. Then it answers the question it says customers ask most, whether SG2 simply cuts better than VG10:
粉末ハイスは研ぎ上げた時の切れ味は空恐ろしくなるほど鋭い反面、一度刃先が潰れてしまうと切れ止むと早いです。一方でVG10でもしっかりと刃の厚みが抜かれていれば、刃先が丸くなってしまった後も食材に切り込んでいくような感覚があります
Freshly sharpened, a powder steel is frighteningly sharp. But once the edge is crushed, it stops cutting fast. A VG10 knife, on the other hand, if it has been properly thinned behind the edge, still feels as if it bites into the food even after the edge has rounded.
It quotes a craftsman for the reason: powder steel rounds over with its fine particles still fine, while VG10 and carbon steel keep a slightly toothy edge that cuts even when dull.
So there are two honest answers, and which one is yours depends on you. If you sharpen regularly, SG2 stays at its peak for longer and the peak is higher. If you let a knife go until it feels dull, a thin VG10 degrades more gracefully, and the SG2 you paid extra for may feel worse in the weeks you actually use it.
The steel maker says it too, in its next product
Takefu makes a newer powder steel, SPG STRIX, hardened to around HRC 65. Its sales copy is worth reading for what it says about the older ones:
これまでの高硬度粉末鋼とは研ぎ易さが違います
The ease of sharpening is different from the high-hardness powder steels until now.
The page goes on to say the new steel achieves ease of sharpening like carbon steel without the hard carbides of conventional powder steels. A company does not advertise that a new product fixes a problem unless the problem is real. That is the steel mill itself, in its own words, confirming what Ichimonji says: conventional hard powder steel is harder to sharpen. Remember that its page for VG10 says easy to sharpen, and its page for SG2 says nothing.
Rust: the English pages and the Sakai shop disagree
Every SG2 product page I read promises excellent rust resistance. Takefu itself lists corrosion resistance among the four virtues of SG2. Ichimonji qualifies it:
その炭素（C）の含有率の高さから、他のステンレス鋼に比較して錆びが出やすい素材と言えます
Because of its high carbon content, it can be called a material that rusts more readily than other stainless steels.
And it describes how:
白鋼のような薄く茶色くなって来るのではなく、ポツポツと穴が空くような錆び方をします
Not the thin brown film you get on white steel, but rust that comes up in tiny pits, like pinholes.
SG2 is stainless, and it will not rust like the carbon knives in the patina piece. But do not buy it on the assumption that it forgives being left wet. Dry it like you would any good knife.
Watch the word VG10 itself
One more thing from the steel mill, and it applies whichever way you go. On its VG10 page Takefu has posted an important notice. In its English version:
Recently, there have been rampant sales of similar or counterfeit products on the Internet, etc., with advertising claims that our original blade steel “VG10” … is used as the material.
The company that makes VG10 is telling you not to trust the letters VG10 in an online listing. It adds that such products differ greatly in performance and quality from genuine VG10 knives. The practical defence is to buy knives that name the smith or the manufacturer, and from shops that name them too. A listing that says VG10 Damascus and nothing else about who made it is the listing Takefu is warning you about.
What I would buy
I do not buy knives to test them, and I will not pretend otherwise. What follows rests on the published pages of the steel maker, on spec sheets and prices I checked myself on 25 September 2026, and on what two Sakai shops tell their own customers in Japanese.
If this is your first serious Japanese knife, or you are still learning to sharpen: VG10. The maker says it is easy to sharpen, and the first stone you should own is a 1000 grit, as the whetstone piece explains. A VG10 edge comes back quickly on it. The Kanetsune KC-860 all-VG10 gyuto 210mm, $241.99 is in stock, made by Kitasho, rated 60 to 62, 137g with a spine of about 2.3mm. It is solid VG10 all the way through, not a core under cladding, and there is no pattern on it to pay for.
If you already sharpen and want the longer edge, and you have decided the premium is worth it: SG2, bought for the steel. The Takeshi Saji R2 Black Damascus gyuto 240mm with desert ironwood, $642.99 is the one where I can show you exactly what the steel costs, because its VG10 twin is $183 cheaper and otherwise identical. If you want the same comparison at a shorter length, the 180mm with white antler, $481.99 carries a $116 premium over its VG10 twin. Both were in stock when I checked. Neither twin was.
Marked down: paying SG2 money for a pattern. If the SG2 knife you are looking at is Damascus and the plain SG2 knife from the same maker is much cheaper, the difference is the cladding. Kurosaki shows that the cladding can cost more than the steel.
Marked down: any comparison that gives you a composition for SG2 without saying where it came from. The maker marks it non-disclosure. Two retailers give two different carbon figures.
Disclosure
I have four approved affiliate partnerships: two with knife retailers, Hocho-Knife and SharpEdge, and two with Japanese language-learning companies unrelated to knives. This page carries three tracked links to Hocho-Knife. At about 10 percent, the Kanetsune VG10 gyuto pays me about $24, the Saji SG2 180mm about $48, and the Saji SG2 240mm about $64.
The knife I recommend to most readers pays me the least of the three. The SG2 knives pay me more because they cost more, and you should weigh that when you read the section that says the premium is real. It is real. It is also $116 to $242.
Hocho-Knife excludes seven brands from its programme. Two of them make knives relevant here, Yaxell with an SG2 Damascus line and Tojiro with a VG10 line, so I could not be paid for either and neither appears as a recommendation. The Kurosaki knives are not linked because both were out of stock.
My full affiliate disclosure is here.
Sources used here, all public: the Takefu Special Steel pages for VG10, Super Gold 2 and SPG STRIX, in Japanese and English; the Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide guide 粉末ハイス鋼, published February 2022 and updated September 2024; the Jikko guide to SG2 powder steel, March 2024; the Hocho-Knife listings for every knife priced above, checked on 25 September 2026; and the English comparison guides by Hasu-Seizo and LeeKnives for the composition figures quoted.