Only one knife needed for me. I always keep it in its box and out of the way so no accidents happen with the very sharp knife. I personally didn't like it to chop some things like veggies as it seemed to grab and stick. However, it cuts meat products and craft projects wonderfully. I also have the cutco potato peeler and I will never need to buy another peeler. Extremely expensive - it was painful to fork out the $$$, but worth it for 1 knife to cut things other knives just can't.