Can some one bring me up to speed on this steel & is 58 hard enough to hold an edge but no be too hard to sharpen? These are the specs for the Marble Woodcraft.

From what I`ve heard it is the same stuff as Cold Steels old Carbon V. Good steel but not up to Marbles older 52100 blades. They decided to start cost cutting in the early 2000s and from reports are not the same as they were. Try looking around here for info on both the steel and marbles
www.knifeforums.com//ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?Cat=

58 Rockwell is decent hardness so it should hold a good edge all things being equal, but the quality of the heat treatment will have more of a bearing on edge retention. I haven't heard alot of good reviews on Marble knives of late so I would not recommend personally with all the other choices on the market. I would go for a good quality stainless steel like VG-10 or S30V by Buck or Spyderco. My personal favorite is the Spyderco Moran in VG-10.

It's kind of a cross between 1095 and O-1. It's a good carbon steel blade. It's used on the CS CarbonV blades and the Camillus BK series .A good steel !

It is the same thing as SAE 51100. It is essentially SAE 52100 with less chromium. Therefore, it will not have quite as refined (fine) a grain structure nor quite as much chromiun carbide as 52100. On the plus side it is easier to sharpen.