While all of the above is true, I believe that most knife enthusiasts will also agree that, *if* money was no object, they would own at least one high grade Japanese Honyaki knife. Honyaki is the process of hand tempering and quenching that was originally used to make samurai swords, and results in steels with HRCs of 65-68 (typical Wusthof/good Henckels is about 58).
This extraordinary hardness allows an expert to grind edges with incredibly steep angles onto it. The best Honyaki knives carry the Hamon -- the tempering line -- denoting the differentiation of the edge metal (ha-gane) from the support metal (ji-gane) resulting from differentiated tempering, where the edge metal is quenched and tempered more quickly than the support metal.
They will be very hard to sharpen, and aside from the sharpness, it takes the right abrasive and some skill to polish the blade in such a way as to show off the Hamon. However, if money is truly no object, you could always get it professionally sharpened and polished by someone who is skilled in handling the highest grade Japanese blades, even if you have to ship it to them and back each time.
They will also be hard to care for in other ways -- Honyaki is typically carbon steel which will rust if not taken care of the right way (though there are some stainless Honyakis out there too, be sure you are aware of this before buying -- a good Honyaki knife can cost in the thousands per knife and it would just be a damned crying shame for such a work of art to rust in a block if the person using it did not realize this). The extreme high hardness means that it will be more prone to chipping if used roughly or hitting bone, and may even have big chunks broken out of it like a plate rim if it is dropped. If your friend just wanted a good sharp knife that is pretty to look at, he/she might prefer a stainless damascus pattern knife of 60-62 HRC instead. Or perhaps even have one of the many dedicated and skilled knife craftsmen in America make a custom set -- look at knife seller sites like chefknivestogo.com and browse the "knife brands" to see a listing of some of these people who have dedicated themselves to making beautiful and highly functional knives.
To look up where to purchase one -- just google the term "Honyaki" and you'll see many high end knife vendor sites carry them. If you ask around on forums like this one, someone can also direct you to Japanese smiths, some of whom would also be willing to custom make knives to order.
