Its a heavy knife, but I'm not sure it's real Damascus steel. It's also not very sharp. It does seem to be well made. Once I get it professionally sharpened, I'm sure it will be fine. I would not however buy it again. Sorry.*I need to share with you that when I posted the above review the company wrote to me. I kept refusing their offers to make it right, and they made it right anyway. I have never seen a company try so hard to make it right. They never asked me to return the knife, and so i refused to take a refund as i know some people do that to get out of paying, and I think it's wrong to do that to a company. When I explained that as an older disabled person, it was too much trouble to return the knife, they refunded 100% of my money anyway. I guess they really mean that promise. I guess during this hard time in life we are all going through, we can all use a break. This company has so many truly happy customers, I just hate to harm them when they tried so hard to make it right. I guess I would now say, if you take a chance and try their products, they will absolutely make it right if you're not satisfied.