I can hardly resist the temptation!

[Tony Shea]

Like most neander's, I too have a bit of a sharpening stone fetish. But most of my waterstones currently are synthetics which the setup I use now I find wonderful. But while I was looking around on The Best Things website I happened upon their stone offerings. I see they have aquired some natural Japanese waterstones (which they are calling Nakayama's) which has really piqued my interest. They are very expensive as all good natural stones but this is something I have been interested in obtaining for a long time now. Anyone have any experience or insight of the stones they are showing? On what little research i've done on natural stones I have had a hard time in determining the ACTUAL quality of listed stones for sale.

http://thebestthings.com/newtools/na...ese_stones.htm

[David Weaver]

They're using the term Honyama (which may have been a company brand or general reference to finishers, to my knowledge, the stratum will be names more like tomae, suita, ...). Nakayama is a mine, I can't read japanese so I don't know what the stamps are on those stones. If they are stones of good pedigree, they will have the mine stamp on them and something else from the miner or the grader for the company declaring that they are superb. The miners know the stones, and it is unusual that a stone isn't graded almost immediately.

I've spent some money on natural japanese stones. Never as much as any of those at one time, but in total about as much as all three of those together. I would like to provide a few unsolicited thoughts:

* they are right, no synthetic stone is like a natural japanese stone. That doesn't make natural japanese stones more practical, nor does it mean you'll get sharper tools which is always the first conclusion people have
* stones vary a lot, and there are sometimes expensive stones that were graded as expensive stones from the mine but that really aren't that lovely to use
* like any natural stone, any hard japanese stone will cut its finest only when it is not generating a slurry, the particles in the stones are actually not below about 3 or 4 microns in general
* there are stone dealers who will let you try various stones and as long as you don't remove the stamps on the top of the stones. Alex gilmore comes to mind - his stones are expensive, but you get the chance to try the stones and if one really isn't what you wanted, he'll take it back
* when you have a japanese stone, unless the stamps are still on it, as soon as you use it and remove the stamps it will be worth a fraction of what you paid for it. The dealer to customer relationship is very important with stones, and once you're the owner of the stone, that relationship doesn't exist when you sell your stone to another person
* there is a sweet spot with stones, as far as I can tell, that is around $200-$400 where you can get a superb finisher that gives up little to the much more expensive stones, and gives you the same experience using a stone that is hard enough to work without self slurrying or that will cut fast slurried (you can intentionally chose a stone that's not as hard, though)
* there are some things about certain stones that will drive the value through the roof without offering you anything as a user

I really like TBT, but before you spend the money on a stone of unknown pedigree like those (for example, Mt. Atago has several mines on it, you MUST know the mine of a stone for it to hold any value, and in reality for it to retain most of the value, the stamp still needs to be on it. that's problematic if you actually use it, because that stamp will have a short lifetime), give them some time to get their ducks in a row.

If you're looking to spend a certain amount, whether it's $200 or $500 or whatever, take your figure to a trusted stone dealer and tell them what it is that you want and that you want performance over looks so that you're not paying collectability value on a stone you want solely as a user.

I have lost about half of the purchase price I've paid on every stone that I've bought new and sold. Expect that if you buy a stone... (it's the resale vs. trusted dealer thing).

Be aware that there are fakes of various stones, or mislabeled stones that are not from the mines people say they are. That's just part of the game. That is in no way intended toward TBT's stones, but when I was frequenting the razor boards, there were some reports of dealers applying fake maruka stones (which is a very exclusive stamp to have on a stone) and there are definitely a lot of maruka fakes going around. LV's stones were likely never part of anything untoward, but that doesn't mean that those stones are worth $1000 to you nor does it mean that you can't find a stone better suited to you and just as large for $200.

[glenn bradley]

Aren't they supposed to be green . Sorry, I couldn't resist. All in fun.