Serge,

you are confusing the names a little bit. The 'black' and 'white' steel you describe are surface finishes and do not associate to quality of the chisel. The differences in prices you are seeing is more a case of looking at a small sample size of tools. There are some very high quality chisels which have the blackened finish.

As for white and blue 'paper' steels, as Don noted there is no visual difference between them. The word 'paper' refers to the color of the paper in which the steels are wrapped from the mill. Hitachi is the main steel mill.

White paper steels are relatively pure with few other trace elements included. The blue paper steels have elements such are molybdenum and chromium mixed in, which increases the toughness of the steel in terms of resistance to abrasion. There are several white paper steels (among them, #1, #2, and specially smelted), and there are several different blue paper steels (among them, #1, #2, Super, and specially smelted).

There are other steels besides the ones already mentions used by Japanese tool blacksmiths, including steel from western countries.

The blue steel tends to have inherently higher resistance to dulling, however the inclusion of the other elements seems to make it less able to be sharpened to an extremely acute edge. The white steel can be sharpened to a very acute edge, but dulls more quickly than the blue. BUT! these are really generalizations, for a skilled blacksmith can manipulate the metal such to over come much of the limitation of either steel. White steel is thought of as the more difficult to forge well, and thus well made white paper steel tools can be among the more expensive. Both white and blue paper steels can be readily sharpened with water stones. White paper steel tend to be easier to sharpen, but again, it really depends upon the forging.

Finally, if you want to become good at sharpening then you need to to a lot of sharpening. I wouldn't worry about mastery.

~C