Thread: Calling the few Shapton 30K owners....

Originally Posted by Jimbo

So the kanji, while very cool, are not the defining feature of a natural Japanese stone.

Thanks for explaining that, James. It does make sense to me given that each Japanese stone does seem to have it's own uniqueness; Far and away, more than any other waterstone I know of, the Japanese stones due to irregular shape, skin, surface appearance, etc seem to be most often visually identifiable on an individual basis.

Given their uniqueness, I was incorrectly arguing a parallelism between the Japanese Stones and their identification (kanji) and the identifying stamps, if intact, (paper labels) on a vintage Thuringian like an Escher or Hohenzollern. I use my stones as well, rather than having them as high valued paper weights; however, that said, my point was IF I was to buy a $500+ Escher with intact labels, I would use that stone, but it would be foolish for me to scrub off or carelessly allow the labels to be destroyed since clearly so much of the value of those stones (since there is no nearly the variance in Thuringian appearance as there is with Japanese stones) is placed on the labels for identification and authentication. There's an almost incomparable difference between the value of an intact labeled Escher and a non-labeled Thuringian the owner claims is an Escher.



Chris L

On an escher, the situation is slightly diffeent because the label does not get in the way of honing / lapping.
So I agree you'd be a fool to remove it because there is no reason to.
With J Nats you often have no choice because lapping the bottom is usually not an option. In order to use it to its fullest, you have to lap it, thus destroying the kanji.

Originally Posted by Bruno

On an escher, the situation is slightly diffeent because the label does not get in the way of honing / lapping.
So I agree you'd be a fool to remove it because there is no reason to.
With J Nats you often have no choice because lapping the bottom is usually not an option. In order to use it to its fullest, you have to lap it, thus destroying the kanji.

Makes perfect sense to me, Bruno. Thanks for the clarification. This post more so the recent slight tangent it's gone on has been good for me. It really got me thinking in that previously, I staunchly considered myself a USER of razors and stones rather than a COLLECTOR. This post and the talk about the J Nats as you put it makes me admit to myself that I'm a User AND a Collector. You've shown that the J Nat stampings if honed away would not significantly reduce the value of the stones (that's good!). IF such an action DID significantly reduce (hundreds of dollars or more) the value of a stone that I would use, I'm admitting that would be tough for me to make such a decision to purchase such a stone. Now, if I could get a deal on an authentic J Nat that had no markings, all would be good! I have to sell some razors first to free up some cash. Then, there's the 2"x72" grinder I'm in the process of gathering materials for as well.....oh the list goes on and on!

Chris L

Read 'em and weep, fellas:

Originally Posted by davabak

Read 'em and weep, fellas:

Pfft! The Shapton 16M is, like, sooooo 5 minutes ago! I just received my 16T last week, and have a pre-order in on the 16Y. How you can even think about shaving off the 16M is beyond me.



James.

Originally Posted by davabak

Read 'em and weep, fellas:

Dude, your new stone polishes individual atoms individually it's so fine! Whoa!

Chris L

Thanks fellas.

Look what the FedEx guy just brought:

Tventy Vun! (Obscure Bugs Bunny reference, card game versus Black Jack Shellac)