If you are thinking of giving someone a Japanese knife this winter, you may already have been warned that a knife cuts the relationship, and told to put a coin in the box so the other person can hand it back and technically buy the knife.
On 25 September 2026 I went through the English guides that come up first for this question, and then through what Japanese knife makers and shops write for Japanese customers. The English guides are all by knife shops: Knifewear, SharpEdge, Hasu-Seizo, Oishya, Seido, Kasumi Japan, and the English site of Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, a knife house in Sakai.
The two sets of pages do not agree as much as you would expect. The Japanese page of that same Sakai house says there is hardly any record of knives being avoided as gifts because they cut ties. And the coin mostly does not appear in Japanese at all. The two Japanese pages where I did find it describe it the other way round from the English version.
This is the thirteenth piece in a series on the gap between how Japanese knives are described abroad and how they are talked about here. The last one was about the word honyaki. This one is shorter, and I hope more practical if you are buying a present.
What the English guides say
Hasu-Seizo presents it as a Japanese rule: in Japan, it says, a knife given as a present traditionally comes with a small coin.
Knifewear says the superstition itself comes from Japanese folklore, where a knife is given to symbolically sever ties between two people. Its fix is to include a coin in the box. The person who receives the knife takes the coin out, gives it back to you, and the knife has been bought rather than given.
The English site of Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide adds a Japanese touch. It says people sometimes attach a five yen coin, because five yen is read go-en, which sounds like the word for a bond or a good connection, and that the recipient may give a five yen coin back.
Some of the shops are more careful. Kasumi Japan, which sells Japanese knives, describes the coin trick as a tradition practised for generations across Europe and the Americas. SharpEdge says interpretations vary across European, Asian and other traditions, and the English page of the Sakai house mentions France and Thailand as well.
What the same Sakai house says in Japanese
The Japanese page from Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide, on what it means to give a knife and how to do it, was last updated in August 2024. It does not pretend the worry is imaginary:
切れるというワードはどうしても忌み言葉として祝い事の場には縁起が悪い物としてふさわしくないとされてきました
The word kireru, to cut, has been treated as an imikotoba, a word to avoid at celebrations, and so thought unlucky and unsuitable there.
It mentions that at weddings in particular, people sometimes say a knife means the bond will be cut. But it goes on:
本来刃物にはそれとはまったく逆の意味が込められてきた歴史があります。それは刃物は「魔や災いと断ち切り、未来を切り開く」と言う意味です
Blades have historically carried exactly the opposite meaning: to cut away evil and misfortune, and to cut open the way to the future.
As examples it lists shiken no gi, the ceremony in which the emperor presents a protective sword when a child is born into the imperial family, the swords offered at the rebuilding ritual of Ise Shrine, and the blades that show up at ordinary celebrations here: scissors at a ribbon cutting, an axe at a ship launch, the knife for a wedding cake, and the ceremonial knife of hocho-shiki, the formal knife ritual.
And then:
刃物は縁を切るとして避けられてきたという記録はほとんどなく、「魔や災いを断ち切る」と言う意味での贈り物として使われてきた歴史の方がずっと長く、根強いと言えるでしょう
There is hardly any record of blades being avoided because they cut bonds. The history of giving them as gifts in the sense of cutting away evil and misfortune is far longer and more deeply rooted.
There is no coin anywhere on that Japanese page. I searched it for five yen, for coins and for small change in every form I could think of, and found nothing. So one company tells its English readers about five yen coins and its Japanese readers about protective swords.
I do not think the English page is being dishonest. A shop that sells abroad gets asked the question the way foreign customers ask it, and answers it that way. But if the question is what people in Japan think, I would trust the page written for them.
The two places I did find the coin
I found the five yen coin on two Japanese pages. One is BECOS, a site about traditional crafts. The other is Yoshikin, the company in Niigata that makes Global knives. In Yoshikin, it comes up in a section on 験担ぎ, small good luck gestures, aimed at people who still feel uneasy even after hearing that a knife is a lucky gift:
やり方は、贈った相手から5円玉をもらうだけの簡単なものです。「包丁を贈って切れそうになったご縁（5円）を返してもらった」という意味があると言われています
All you do is receive a five yen coin from the person you gave it to. It is said to mean that you gave a knife, and got back the go-en, the bond, that was about to be cut.
That is not the English custom. In the English version the giver supplies the coin and the recipient hands that same coin back, as a token payment. In the Japanese version the recipient gives the giver a five yen coin of their own, and the point is a pun on go-en, getting the bond back, rather than a purchase. Yoshikin also hedges it with it is said, and offers it as something to try if you are worried, not as the way things are done. BECOS tells it the same way and ends its version with だとか, roughly so they say.
What might actually bother someone in Japan
The concern people here really have is narrower, and it is about words at particular occasions. Yoshikin says that for wedding gifts and for oseibo, the year-end gifts, some people think it unlucky to give anything that suggests cutting or breaking. BECOS notes that some etiquette guides advise against knives for weddings and oseibo, and the Sakai house mentions weddings.
So if you are giving to someone in Japan, or to someone whose family keeps Japanese customs, the occasion matters more than the object. A wedding present, and to a lesser degree a year-end present, might get a raised eyebrow from someone traditional. For a new home, a new job, a birthday, or a friend who simply loves to cook, the Japanese sources recommend a knife. Yoshikin mentions starting married life, living alone for the first time, a new house, a move and retirement, and the Sakai house adds birthdays and the day in May when Japan thanks mothers.
What both of them suggest, if you are worried, is to tell the person why you chose a knife. Yoshikin recommends a message card that explains what a knife means as a gift. The Sakai house says it is a nice touch to explain it as you hand the knife over.
If you still want to do the coin
It does no harm, and the person you give it to may know the English story too. If you want the version I found in Japanese, they give you a five yen coin. If you want the European one, tape a coin inside the box. I would still write the card.
What to give
The Sakai house keeps it simple for an ordinary household:
一般の方へ包丁を贈るのでしたらやはり三徳包丁で良いです
If you are giving a knife to an ordinary person, a santoku is the right choice.
It also says stainless is the easy option these days, and for a gift I agree. You will not be there to remind anyone to dry the blade, and a first Japanese knife that rusts tends to end up in a drawer. I wrote more about that in the piece on patina and rust.
These are from Hocho-Knife, a shop I have an affiliate partnership with, as explained at the bottom. Prices and stock were checked on 25 September 2026.
- Kanetsune KC-860 all-VG10 santoku 180mm, $225.99. Solid VG10 stainless, rated 60 to 62 HRC, 131g, with an octagonal handle in lacquered laminated wood. It is the shape the Sakai house suggests, and Takefu Special Steel, which makes VG10, describes the steel as easy to sharpen. More on that in the VG10 and SG2 comparison.
- Name engraving, $20.99. Laser engraved, up to six characters, in kanji or in the Latin alphabet.
- Wrapping in a tenugui cloth with a message card, $14.99 a knife. There are eight patterns, including Mount Fuji and asanoha, and the card is a good place for a line about cutting away misfortune.
If you want engraving for a holiday present, check the terms first. The shop says it adds 2 to 7 days before shipping, is not available on blades shorter than 150mm or on knives over $1,000, and that an engraved knife cannot be returned, exchanged or cancelled. The santoku above is 180mm, so it qualifies, but I would only engrave a knife you are sure about, and I would buy it early.
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 santoku would pay me about $23, the engraving about $2 and the wrapping about $1.50.
SharpEdge, my other knife partner, is one of the English guides I quoted above. I quoted it for what it says, and this page does not link to it.
Yoshikin, which makes Global knives, is my source for the Japanese version of the coin custom. Global is one of seven brands Hocho-Knife excludes from its programme, so I earn nothing from it.
My full affiliate disclosure is here.
Sources used here, all public: the Japanese and English pages of Sakai Ichimonji Mitsuhide on giving knives, the Japanese page updated in August 2024; the Yoshikin column on giving knives, April 2024, updated June 2025; the BECOS guide to knife gifts; the English guides by Knifewear, SharpEdge, Hasu-Seizo, Oishya, Seido and Kasumi Japan, read on 25 September 2026; and the Hocho-Knife listings and service pages priced above, checked the same day.