Any guesses on this hone?

[ChrisL]

This hone is actually part of a wood all-in-one travel kit I bought off Ebay a month or so ago. See this link for pics of the entire kit: http://straightrazorpalace.com/showt...963#post160963

I've only started to lap this very delicately with a DMT 325 since it's bonded to the wood kit (don't want to get the wood wet). The hone is silky smooth but it seems to be a very hard stone (like a belgian blue). When wet, I thought it had a mudstone smell similar to the belgians (I like that smell). I passed a razor over the hone a bit, but it didn't seem to leave any scratch pattern, or diminish the fine scratch pattern already on that razor (so, it didn't really seem to do anything). I would definitely need to test this hone more to say definitively whether it seems to polish an edge or not. I don't have a matching slurry stone, So I would just have to use it wet or dry. It measures just over 1/4" thick, approx 1 1/4" width by 7 1/2". Worst case, I wondered if this was even just a piece of slate. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.





It's hard to tell from the pic, but there are variations in color that go from gray/light gray to even a gray green.

This pic shows the slate backing of a piece of yellow bout coticule for color comparison. The pic doesn't pick up the variation too well but the bout slate is quite black, while this hone surface is gray.