[Doug Lester]

I assume that by modern cutlers you mean commercial makers. I really doubt that they think that differential hardening and pattern welded damascus is a thing of the past, it's more that they cannot be ecconomically utilized with modern manufacturing techniques. Yes there are a few cutlers who utilize pattern welded steel but they are supplying a niche market. Most manufactures are supplying the average buyer, which means postley stainless steel and some carbon steel blades. They are just making what sells.

You also have to keep in mind that modern steels, even the 10XX and W series, are superior to, by way of composition and consistancy, than what was made in the past. Welded damascus, especially mosaic damascus, has a visual appeal that just can't be matched by monosteel but the best damascus made is no better by nature than a monosteel blade. All that folding and forge welding opens up the possiblily of there being hidden cold shuts and occlusions (hopefully any knife maker who makes a blade with obsurvable defects would scrap it).

A hamon, even though attractive to some, contributes nothing to the blade. It is just evidence that the blade is of shallow harding steel and has been differentially hardened by some technique. A blade with a hamon is no better or worse than a blade of the same steel that has been differentially hardened but does not, by way of surface preparation, show a hamon. It could be worse, admittedly a highly subjection term, than a differentially hardened blade that, due to the steel used, cannot desplay a hamon. For that matter, the comparitive qualities of differentially heat treated, which includes differentially hardening, is a matter open to debate.

Doug Lester