joel moskowitz
"I really wish I had mastered everything about the craft I want to master and was down to needing edges that stay sharp forever. In thinking about all the current challenges I have in the shop, not one of them is addressed by an edge tool that goes longer between honings. Not by a long shot."

This is a really excellent quote. About 20 or 30 years ago you really could buy chisels that didn't work very well. These days as long as you stick with well known retailers, at minimum pretty much anything you buy will be decent to pretty good. What I tell customers is that if you buy the chisel that fits well in your hand everything else will fall into place. In my own case I don't really use the chisels in my tool box that have the longest edge retention. I use the ones with the second longest edge retention, but feel the best and livest in my hands. Now I didn't make a conscious decision about that, it just seems that when I need to use a chisel it's the latter chisel set that gets used.