Different seller and different story - a couple of years ago, I saw a guy list a 8x3x1/2 norton translucent arkansas stone for $179 on ebay.

I sent him a polite message letting him know that they could be had new for $79 (and at that time, free shipping on top of that...they're still $79 now, but I don't know if shipping is still free). He said he wasn't aware of that and he took the listing down right away.....

He had several other stones for similar markup and left those up, but I figure he was just seeing if he could find a sucker or two. Not my cup of tea.

Same as the guy above, if he's charging $40 to hone, that's work I'd do if people were beating down my door asking for me to do it...but I'd get a puckery feeling in my pants asking that!!

There are many strange things to be found in the razoring community, though, too. I saw an advertisement for honing services not that long ago where someone said they spent an average of 1 1/2 hours refreshing each razor that they got in for honing. People just be including broad axes in the packages or something.