Thread: A very special weekend!

The previous weekend was a very special one – we honored a great man that has spent quite a part of his lifetime to research and investigate hones and whetstones, their history and usage. His knowledge is still outstanding and might never been reached by others completely.
So we had a honing and whetstone meeting in memorial of Henk Bos!

I wish to thank all of the participants who made their way to Ardennes Coticules:

• Some people travelled more than 10 hours through 3 different European countries – just to participate the meeting!
• Some people left their family alone over the weekend – just to be there!
• Some even took their family with them – just to have the chance to join!
• Some people cancelled all of their business obligations – just to participate!
• Some people spent hundreds of Euros to come by plane -
• Others had to use a ferry to set over from the biggest European isle to get onshore and participate

Thanks to all for coming and making this event to a very, very special one.

Especially I would like to thank Ge and Janneke Bos for joining. Great to have met you there!
And also very special thanks to Maurice, André and Anne-Katrien at Ardennes for opening the chance to come together at this time-honored place, the hospitality and the knowledge you share!

Gents – one thing we forgot – as mostly at those meetings: to take a picture of us at a time, when all participants had still been there! So please post on some of your best photos you have taken during the meeting!

Hope to meet you all again somehow, somewhere soon!
Regards Peter

Sounds like a great trip!
It's always fun meeting up with fellow stone-afficionados like that.
Having travelled both in Europe and in the US for various meetups, I can attest to it being worth every penny
And yes, pictures, we need pictures!

First of all: a big thank you to Peter for organizing this great weekend at Ardennes Coticule. We got together in honour of Henk Bos who wrote four books on European hones and whetstones all of which are available on line. He was working on the fifth book when he fell ill. A truely remarkable man to those who had the pleasure of knowing him. I met him once when he was on his way to Scandinavia to do research on the old whetstone mines and quarries there. We had dinner with him and his wife and afterwards he told me everything worth knowing about the various hones in my collection. He also showed us his Volkswagen van that was equipped with solar panels and everything else to enable survival for a couple of days in the sticks.
Maurice Celis and André Lesuisse (Ardennes Coticule's geologist) told us everything about the geology of the coticule veins and their extraction. They showed us their current extraction site and also a new site they are prospecting in the Old Rock area. Peter told us of his research of Thuringian hones. We now know that many types of whetstones were quarried in Thuringen besides Eschers and slate hones. Radek told us a lot about the history of Czech hones and whetstones. A truely remarkable feat as much historical evidence was destroyed in the post WW II era by the communist rulers of his country.
Saturday night Maurice had organized a BBQ, Peter doing the cooking.
We all had a great time.
It is bed time for me now, I'll post pics tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Thanks for posting this. I had assumed someone had written some books on the history and characteristics of European hones, but had never run across a reference. Thanks to this post, I have now downloaded all 4 pdfs. Many, many hours of reading ahead of me...

What a great weekend full of knowledge, friendship, oportunities to try and obtain trully unique hones (I am still so jealous that could not get one of those vintage Old Rock or Vienette hones), to do own prospecting of hones and geological samples.
Our hosts were so generous to give us their time and hospitality. I still can not believe their saying "You are collectors, you are here to collect", amazing food ( Peter in his chef's role was amazing).
Once more big THANK YOU you to all participants and organisers.

So I got my photos finally downloaded to the computer. I didn’t take a lot, but here is a small selection:


A lot of discussion (and stones of course) in the Ardennes workshop


Who wants this big coticule?



André explaining the geology of Ol’Preu


A lonely “bushdoctor” sitting on the wall…..

Thanks for starting this thread and posting pictures, hatchizo!

Do you know how long coticules have been mined? does it go back to prerecorded history?

Originally Posted by hatzicho

So I got my photos finally downloaded to the computer. I didn’t take a lot, but here is a small selection:

Thank you Peter for the pictures. Petra took some but they were all a bit unsharp unfortunately.

Here is something interesting about coticule mining in the past:

Management of abandoned slate and coticule underground quarries by means of GIS, Vielsalm, Belgium (PDF Download Available)

Here's some more: ArcNews Summer 2005 Issue -- In Vielsalm, Belgium, Abandoned Underground Quarries Managed with GIS This one says they started somewhere in the 17th century; Perret mentions coticules in his treatise on Pogotonomie ou l'art de raser soi-même.

Apparently Pliny mentioned Belgian hones: http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...-stones-2.html

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

Thanks for starting this thread and posting pictures, hatchizo!

Do you know how long coticules have been mined? does it go back to prerecorded history?

Well coticules are known since the middle ages. Reported mining has began somehow 1625 if I remember correct.
Also the old romans knew a stone named coticula. The roman senator Gaius Plinius reported on this stone as a testing stone for gold and silver. But actually the stone migth not be identical to the belgian coticules (which is normally too soft for such a testing stone- who are nowadays made mainly from black arkansas). Bushdoctor has recently found a trace of this stone in Italy if I remember correct.