New genuine Nakayama?

Hi there!

I'm the very happy new owner of a tennen toishi, and it's really great!

I bought it as a "Nakayama" and I was wondering if this stone has typical features of a Nakayama,
like the kawa / skin? I can only show bits and pieces of the side kawa...
I couldn't see the bottom because it's attached to wood,

Also, does anyone know what is written on the bottom? There are 3 lines, the last one is captured in 3 different pics

Thanks!





Attachment 141532Attachment 141533Attachment 141534Attachment 141535Attachment 141536Attachment 141537Attachment 141538Attachment 141539Attachment 141540Attachment 141541

My nakayama asagi mizu looks very similar to your in the skin. The color is hard to judge by pictures. Im sure someone with better knowledge will chime in. The stone I have is the best finisher ive ever tried. Good luck with it.

Looks similar to my stone too

No way to tell by just looking at it, I have seen a pic of the skin of several stones from different mines and they look very similar.
Here you are at the mercy of the seller if this is Nakayama or not, what really matters in the end is if the stone works for you.

This stone looks a lot like my Nakayama Tomae Asagi that I got from Alex Gilmore...

Attachment 141569Attachment 141570Attachment 141571

Thank you all! Of course the most important is how the stone works, and it's fabulous!
The first razor I honed got a HHT 4, very curious how it will evolve :rock:
Just wondered if this one had typical signs of...
And, I'm very curious about the text at the bottom of the wood :thinking:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mainaman

...
Here you are at the mercy of the seller if this is Nakayama or not, what really matters in the end is if the stone works for you.

---

+1 on the mercy of the seller thing. You have to trust the vendor and they preferably should be someone who's been doing it for a while and offers a full returns and refund policy.

+0.5 on the what really matters is it works for you thing. Nakayamas attract a premium on price and demand generally, so while it is nice if the stone is a good one and works well, if it has been sold as a Nakayama when in fact it is not, that's fraud pure and simple.

Looks like a nice stone whatever it is and I hope you enjoy using it.

James.

Thanks!
I must admit... my winning bid wasn't the price of a "Nakayama" :angel:
And I really really enjoy using it!
Luck has a part in life, no ones knows when it's about to happen...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fikira

Thanks!
I must admit... my winning bid wasn't the price of a "Nakayama" ...

---

Well that's good then. I was slightly concerned you may have paid a Nakayama price :)

Really, it could very well be a Nakayama but as they say with Thuringians: "no label, no Escher". For the price asked for Nakayamas a vendor not only needs to provide reasonable provenance but also, IMO, some form of personal guarantee.

Anyway, enjoy that stone.

James.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Well that's good then. I was slightly concerned you may have paid a Nakayama price :)

Really, it could very well be a Nakayama but as they say with Thuringians: "no label, no Escher". For the price asked for Nakayamas a vendor not only needs to provide reasonable provenance but also, IMO, some form of personal guarantee.

Anyway, enjoy that stone.

James.

---

Indeed! Absolutely!
Still hope to get a translation on the marks,
patience, patience... :)

Perhaps you can re-post in the Japan section of the Forum! I think that would be your best bet for translation! :shrug:

This has nothing to do with this thread but you all know, animals have skin, rocks don't. It's the weathered surface or unweathered surface.

Dang and here I thought I was picking up some cool rock slang lingo in the know kinda thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cudarunner

Perhaps you can re-post in the Japan section of the Forum! I think that would be your best bet for translation! :shrug:

---

An excellent idea! Thank you!

You stones wood base has a note written by the owner that reads in part "Mistui" probably a retail shop and "Heisei 2nd" or 1991. Most likely just a note to himself as a reminder of where he bought it.

The photos of the skin do not have enough detail, but there are several mines very near Nakayama that have similar colored skin. Some people here think that all of the mines have the same coloration or patterns, but this is not true. Each mine has indicatiors just like the Coticule stones from various veins have indicators, and for the Nakayama it is a sparkle in the black that is unique. Below are some photos showing that sparkle which is only in the black portion of the skin and the crystals of the sparkle are large enough to see with the naked eye when viewed in a good light, and they are different than from the grit silica which is a much much finer granual. The photos also show the typical colors of umber, burnt umber, ocher, and black. The area of pink shown on the right is a concentrated spot of radiolaria called "renge" in Japan that translates as lotus which is found only in suita stones.

It is not easy to distinguish from one mine to the next and it helps to have some known reference stones for comparrison. I have set aside a group of known stones from the over 700 stones that I have bought over the years just for reference. The mines in the Yamashiro area are grouped along and up through a valley that is about 5 miles long, and each mines product is unique.

There are more than a few people even here in the west and many stone enthusiasts in Japan that very likely could while walking along in some neck of the woods spot a lost or discarded Japanese Honyama stone along side the road, actually pick it up, get on a plane, train and bus up into the Umegahata valley and be able to place that stone to withing 500 yards from where it was mined 100 or 200 years ago. Geology is not a myth, it is a science.

Alx

http://www.thejapanblade.com/images/nakasparkle.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alx

You stones wood base has a note written by the owner that reads in part "Mistui" probably a retail shop and "Heisei 2nd" or 1991. Most likely just a note to himself as a reminder of where he bought it.

The photos of the skin do not have enough detail, but there are several mines very near Nakayama that have similar colored skin. Some people here think that all of the mines have the same coloration or patterns, but this is not true. Each mine has indicatiors just like the Coticule stones from various veins have indicators, and for the Nakayama it is a sparkle in the black that is unique. Below are some photos showing that sparkle which is only in the black portion of the skin and the crystals of the sparkle are large enough to see with the naked eye when viewed in a good light, and they are different than from the grit silica which is a much much finer granual. The photos also show the typical colors of umber, burnt umber, ocher, and black. The area of pink shown on the right is a concentrated spot of radiolaria called "renge" in Japan that translates as lotus which is found only in suita stones.

It is not easy to distinguish from one mine to the next and it helps to have some known reference stones for comparrison. I have set aside a group of known stones from the over 700 stones that I have bought over the years just for reference. The mines in the Yamashiro area are grouped along and up through a valley that is about 5 miles long, and each mines product is unique.

There are more than a few people even here in the west and many stone enthusiasts in Japan that very likely could while walking along in some neck of the woods spot a lost or discarded Japanese Honyama stone along side the road, actually pick it up, get on a plane, train and bus up into the Umegahata valley and be able to place that stone to withing 500 yards from where it was mined 100 or 200 years ago. Geology is not a myth, it is a science.

Alx

http://www.thejapanblade.com/images/nakasparkle.jpg

---

Fantastic reply! Thank you very much to share this information with us!
It's a treasure!
I can't find sparkles but that's OK, I like the stone very much either way :beer1:

Hope that I can save fast, so that I can acquire a stone with you!

Kindest regards

Is the color of this stone specific for Nakayama
or can it be found in other mines?

Thank you,

Kindest regardsAttachment 141660Attachment 141661

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fikira

Is the color of this stone specific for Nakayama
or can it be found in other mines?

---

All of the mines share the same basic mineral ingredients but each is unique for two main reasons. The minerals were dispersed in the original event over a wide range and settled in pools or water as sediment. The wind blow minerals were sorted out by gravity so that the heavier grains fell first and closest to the source (a volcano eruption or from a volcanic deposit from a previous eruption) while the finer particles were carried farther to settle. This is why the finest (not controversial) stones are mined near to the city limits of Kyoto while the somewhat coarser stones are dug farther to the west near or beyond the town of Kameoka. There are some anomalies but this is the general thought.

The second factor is that the stone deposits are actually what is called Mono-sedimentary stones, meaning another transformationl event took place. This happened when the original deposits were scraped off like a scab from the Pacfic tetonic plate to become what is now Japan as the Pacific plate subducted under the Eurasian plate. During this period the sedimentary rock was heated and kneaded and jumbled around a bit. I am not a geologist, just a hobbiest but the documents are out there.

These two occurances allowed each portion of the Tamba Terrane to take on characters unique to their geographical location. So the minerals are basically the same, the layering is basiclly the same but there are subtle differences in color and texture from mine to mine. You stone has what we call the cloudy or foggy pattern that is unique to the Narutaki and Nakayama mine. With the absence of the sparkly black minerals on your stone it will be most likely from the Narutaki mine, but without haveing the stone in my hand this is only at best a deduction based on a guess.

Good luck with it.

Alx

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alx

With the absence of the sparkly black minerals on your stone it will be most likely from the Narutaki mine, but without haveing the stone in my hand this is only at best a deduction based on a guess.

---

Alx, as an interested observer I've been following your posts on this. Not being familiar with the geography of Japan I'm wondering what would the characteristics of a stone from the Narutaki mine be ? A finisher or a coarser mix ?

While Germany did not have volcanic eruptions AFAIK, is there any geologic historical info you can give regarding the Thuringan stones and perhaps the coticules ? I'm very interested in this stuff.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alx

All of the mines share the same basic mineral ingredients but each is unique for two main reasons. The minerals were dispersed in the original event over a wide range and settled in pools or water as sediment. The wind blow minerals were sorted out by gravity so that the heavier grains fell first and closest to the source (a volcano eruption or from a volcanic deposit from a previous eruption) while the finer particles were carried farther to settle. This is why the finest (not controversial) stones are mined near to the city limits of Kyoto while the somewhat coarser stones are dug farther to the west near or beyond the town of Kameoka. There are some anomalies but this is the general thought.

The second factor is that the stone deposits are actually what is called Mono-sedimentary stones, meaning another transformationl event took place. This happened when the original deposits were scraped off like a scab from the Pacfic tetonic plate to become what is now Japan as the Pacific plate subducted under the Eurasian plate. During this period the sedimentary rock was heated and kneaded and jumbled around a bit. I am not a geologist, just a hobbiest but the documents are out there.

These two occurances allowed each portion of the Tamba Terrane to take on characters unique to their geographical location. So the minerals are basically the same, the layering is basiclly the same but there are subtle differences in color and texture from mine to mine. You stone has what we call the cloudy or foggy pattern that is unique to the Narutaki and Nakayama mine. With the absence of the sparkly black minerals on your stone it will be most likely from the Narutaki mine, but without haveing the stone in my hand this is only at best a deduction based on a guess.

Good luck with it.

Alx

---

Again a fantastic reply, it is really gold! :bow

If you're talking about having the stone in your hands,
Do you mean that you need more detail of the surface of the hone of the kawa?
Or are more detailed pics not enough? I would if you will, send you more detailed
pics if I know what your looking for

I'm getting the idea that we're not far from the truth,
But it's getting more and more intriguing, on the one hand I would like to know,
on the other hand sending it away for awhile... :cry::cry::cry:

Thank you very much for your guidance!

Kindest regards

This doesn't just apply to honing stones.

Someone well versed in a particular rock or mineral can often times I.D the location just by looking at it. This is especially true of something like Turquoise in matrix. A collector could tell you what state, region and mine it's from based on the coloration and patterns.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Alx, as an interested observer I've been following your posts on this. Not being familiar with the geography of Japan I'm wondering what would the characteristics of a stone from the Narutaki mine be ? A finisher or a coarser mix ?

While Germany did not have volcanic eruptions AFAIK, is there any geologic historical info you can give regarding the Thuringan stones and perhaps the coticules ? I'm very interested in this stuff.

---

Jimmy, sorry but I know zero about the european stones, but I have a handful of coticules and they are totally cool and very interesting.

The Narutaki was an old historic mine and there is now a hospital built on the site. The mines earliest tunnels (and they were tunnels, not pits) were dug at the upper elevations where the sharpening stone material was closest to the surface due to the lack of topsoil and because the mountain sides (really hillsides) were exposed to the weather. In all of the old mines the tunnels were always hand dug and continued to be so up to the current time although now most miners do use some small amounts of dynamite. As the upper tunnel payed out of the good stone they followed the vein down the hill side and opened the next tunnel at a lower level and eventually over the years the last tunnels were dug pretty close to the valley floor. Nakayama was even lastly dug below the water table line in the 1960s. At Narutaki sometime just before the second World War they brought in heavy modern 1920's-30's steam shovels and dug out the last of the Narutaki stones of which some were reportedly of very large size. Because Narutaki is within walking distance to the Kyoto city center they eventually chose to build a hospital at the valley floor level of the property. The original hillsides still raise up behind the hospital.

So Narutaki did produce some grade 24 larger stones, the granular patterns are similar to Nakayama with is only about a quarter mile or so up the valley, the skin on the stones that is made up of hard chert particles mixed with other minerals is very similar to the Nakayama as you can see below and contain the ocher, umber and burnt umber colors but is absent of the black sparkle component. These stone sediments were formed in the late Triassic to early Jurassic period about 225million years ago, and millions of years later when the formation was scraped off the Pacific plate the stone was exposed to volcanic type of heat which toasted the stone and I speculate that this could be one reason why the kawa skin from different areas of the Tamba Terrane looks different and mybe why those sparkles appear on the Nakayama stones.

The stones from the Higashi mono or "eastern things" tend to be finer than the Nigashi mono "western things" stones that are farther away from Kyoto city and Narutaki is a Higashi mine.

Alx


http://www.thejapanblade.com/images/narutakistones.jpg

Thanks Alx, so I assume that the honing characteristics vary to some extent with these ? IOW, while you can ID them as to region/color the honing performance/purpose is a matter of trying the stone to see what you've gotten ? Some are finer than others and like that ?

So the "skin" on my jnats are actually... Dinosaurs?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alx

Jimmy, sorry but I know zero about the european stones, but I have a handful of coticules and they are totally cool and very interesting.

The Narutaki was an old historic mine and there is now a hospital built on the site. The mines earliest tunnels (and they were tunnels, not pits) were dug at the upper elevations where the sharpening stone material was closest to the surface due to the lack of topsoil and because the mountain sides (really hillsides) were exposed to the weather. In all of the old mines the tunnels were always hand dug and continued to be so up to the current time although now most miners do use some small amounts of dynamite. As the upper tunnel payed out of the good stone they followed the vein down the hill side and opened the next tunnel at a lower level and eventually over the years the last tunnels were dug pretty close to the valley floor. Nakayama was even lastly dug below the water table line in the 1960s. At Narutaki sometime just before the second World War they brought in heavy modern 1920's-30's steam shovels and dug out the last of the Narutaki stones of which some were reportedly of very large size. Because Narutaki is within walking distance to the Kyoto city center they eventually chose to build a hospital at the valley floor level of the property. The original hillsides still raise up behind the hospital.

So Narutaki did produce some grade 24 larger stones, the granular patterns are similar to Nakayama with is only about a quarter mile or so up the valley, the skin on the stones that is made up of hard chert particles mixed with other minerals is very similar to the Nakayama as you can see below and contain the ocher, umber and burnt umber colors but is absent of the black sparkle component. These stone sediments were formed in the late Triassic to early Jurassic period about 225million years ago, and millions of years later when the formation was scraped off the Pacific plate the stone was exposed to volcanic type of heat which toasted the stone and I speculate that this could be one reason why the kawa skin from different areas of the Tamba Terrane looks different and mybe why those sparkles appear on the Nakayama stones.

The stones from the Higashi mono or "eastern things" tend to be finer than the Nigashi mono "western things" stones that are farther away from Kyoto city and Narutaki is a Higashi mine.

Alx


http://www.thejapanblade.com/images/narutakistones.jpg

---

AMAZING... Speechless...

Thank you...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Thanks Alx, so I assume that the honing characteristics vary to some extent with these ? IOW, while you can ID them as to region/color the honing performance/purpose is a matter of trying the stone to see what you've gotten ? Some are finer than others and like that ?

---

Jimmy
Yes you are correct it is always best to try out the stones first with your own steel because it really does come down to the character of the steel and stone.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alx

Jimmy
Yes you are correct it is always best to try out the stones first with your own steel because it really does come down to the character of the steel and stone.

---

Maybe a bit of a strange question but:

In your experience, are there similarities in "smell" and mines? For example, my stone has a "peppery" or "smell-of-rain-after-a-hot-day" smell when honing, are there mines with a distinctive smell?

Kindest regards

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fikira

Maybe a bit of a strange question but:

In your experience, are there similarities in "smell" and mines? For example, my stone has a "peppery" or "smell-of-rain-after-a-hot-day" smell when honing, are there mines with a distinctive smell?

Kindest regards

---

Fikira

Funny but this turns out to be a subject of interest of mine too. I have talked with a couple of my friends here in the wine business and they both showed interest is developing some ideas along these lines. It hasn't been a top priority for me lately but I am in Japan right now buying stones and I will breach this subject here in the next few days to a couple of old timers here.

To my reasoning there is no reason why a stone from a particular mine should not smell unique to its location. Wines do, whiskies do and so does tobacco for their own reason. These Japanese natural stones are not just your everyday average stone that you find in a river bed or on the side of a mountain. These are sedimentary rocks contain not only silica but clays containing micro organisms resulting from the original ancient creation but also from water borne seepage in the more recent past.


The fact that the mines are spread out over a swath of land near Kyoto provides them with an opportunity to be maybe more unique as to and of themselves then some fellows here think is worth talking about, but it interests me. I asked my friend in Napa about it because in the wine industry there already is a vocabulary used to describe the nuances regarding wine. There is also one in place regarding Scotch whisky that is based in part around peat infused ground water and salt spray. This has something to do with the vats and barrels but also with the ingredients and the local water used.

There is no reason in my mind why these natural stones shouldn't have some identifiable odors that are unique to, if not particular if not a certain mine maybe at least to a part of the valley from where they were taken from. At the same time the useful study of the above might not be worth the time and trouble, and of little interest to anyone other than the retired and bored crowd.

best wishes,
Alx

Yes. And then again, there is no reason why it should smell different. It's sediment. Pretty much anything with similar composition would smell the same, whether the grit is the size of marbles or microscopic, and whether it comes from one country or another. You can never make any sort of claim with any measure of certainty.

While the clay matrix does have a smell when wet, I'd like to point out to future readers of this thread that claiming to be able to infer the quality or provenance of a stone by its smell would be as ridiculous as witch smelling.

All of my stones smell like pipe tobacco, both natural and synthetic stones. As far as honing qualities, I've got a yellow/green escher that smells like Gawith & Hoggarth's Rum Flake and it is a great stone. If your sniffing around for a good one I recommend that aroma ......... :w

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by alx

Fikira

Funny but this turns out to be a subject of interest of mine too. I have talked with a couple of my friends here in the wine business and they both showed interest is developing some ideas along these lines. It hasn't been a top priority for me lately but I am in Japan right now buying stones and I will breach this subject here in the next few days to a couple of old timers here.

To my reasoning there is no reason why a stone from a particular mine should not smell unique to its location. Wines do, whiskies do and so does tobacco for their own reason. These Japanese natural stones are not just your everyday average stone that you find in a river bed or on the side of a mountain. These are sedimentary rocks contain not only silica but clays containing micro organisms resulting from the original ancient creation but also from water borne seepage in the more recent past.


The fact that the mines are spread out over a swath of land near Kyoto provides them with an opportunity to be maybe more unique as to and of themselves then some fellows here think is worth talking about, but it interests me. I asked my friend in Napa about it because in the wine industry there already is a vocabulary used to describe the nuances regarding wine. There is also one in place regarding Scotch whisky that is based in part around peat infused ground water and salt spray. This has something to do with the vats and barrels but also with the ingredients and the local water used.

There is no reason in my mind why these natural stones shouldn't have some identifiable odors that are unique to, if not particular if not a certain mine maybe at least to a part of the valley from where they were taken from. At the same time the useful study of the above might not be worth the time and trouble, and of little interest to anyone other than the retired and bored crowd.

best wishes,
Alx

---

Indeed, probably a very little talked about subject but very interesting idea!
Thanks for giving your wise and broad ideas, and for helping so greatly!
Maybe it is a seed that grows to become something, eventually :beer1:

Having said that, do you know if there is knowledge about the different masters, smiths, ... of kamisori?
Like dates of production,...


Most kindest regards,

Jethro