Sounds like a good find. Though the true Victorinox paring knife is easy to find for about $6.95, you still saved about 30%. It's always good to have some inexpensive, thin slicers in the kitchen. When you know how to sharpen and don't mind doing it when needed, your range of "decent kitchen knife" broadens out quite a bit.
I have some made by KAI (parent company of Shun) for a large kitchen retailer that I picked up on sale at a nearby outlet store that I think I paid $4 each for. I bought three of the paring knives at that price, and they each come with durable plastic blade guards so you can toss them in the drawer and not worry about the blade getting dinged up, or take them along in your lunch bag. These are the kind with the blade coated the same color as the handle that come in several colors. I think they produce similar knives under their KAI Pure Komachi brand.
They dull pretty quickly if you use them cutting on a hard surface (which is true of any knife really) but hold up fine if used on a cutting board. The steel is soft enough to fully sharpen just using Arkansas stones or inexpensive AlOx stones and a strop, and they respond very well to use of a kitchen honing steel for quick edge maintenance. That IS the trick with low-priced knives, though. They are good value if you don't mind running across a steel, strop, or stone once in a while when needed.
I sharpen kitchen knives occasionally as a favor for some of my wife's friends. Most are not great quality - mostly made in China but with some theoretical brand name on them so not actually dollar-store junk, but their main issue is lack of proper blade care by the owners. Edges all dinged and dented up from being tossed in the sink or drawer, machine washed, cutting on hard surfaces. But after a good sharpening they are good to go. If home cooks would just learn to use decent cutting boards, hand wash their knives, store them in a way that protected the edges, and learn how and when to use those kitchen steels that came with their sets (which work fine on the softer steels in cheaper knives), they would last a year between sharpenings.
