Mystery hone. Grecian? Llyn Idwal? Something else?

Hi there - I'm new!

I've been lurking for a while, and I've learned loads, so thanks to everyone for that. Time for me to join in a bit and see if I can tap into the collected expertise on here.

OK, so in a moment of madness I bought a fairly random hone on ebay UK. It was in a nice paddle case so I took a chance on it being a razor hone and got it for a decent price. Some you win, some you lose.

When it arrived I gave it a quick lapping and a short test hone on my old beater Kropp that I use for experimenting. After a couple of dozen laps with water it put a lovely shine on the bevel and I got a good HHT-4 straight off the stone. The test shave was good too.

Now, for me this is good! I hardly ever get HHT-4 off a plain stone before stropping. I can do it reliably off film, quite often off a coticule rubbed with soap, and - on a good day - off my Welsh slate. But I never get it this easily. This stone is some sort of magic.

So I'm in love with my new stone, and I'm wondering what it is. It is light green with dark green blotches. I think the darker, brownish patches are old oil contamination. It is smooth and fine but quite soft, not glassy hard - it scratches easily and lapped quite easily. The slurry from a diamond plate is whitish.

Here's some pics:

Attachment 153097Attachment 153098Attachment 153099

I haven't seen any pictures of anything that looks exactly the same, although I'm thinking Llyn Idwal or Grecian. But this is just an inspired guess. I'd love to hear from anyone with more experience. If nothing else, I've been very pleased with the performance of this hone and I'd like to look out for a bigger chunk of the same stuff.

Many thanks in advance!

To me it does look like it could be a grecian.

Welcome to SRP :)

I've got no idea, sorry. But if Piet thinks it might be a grecian, I've learned from past experiences to trust his opinion.

Not that I guess it really matters, right? A rose by any other name and all that. As for knowing the type of stone to get a bigger chunk, it's a good idea but really when it comes to these kind of stones you are at the mercy of whatever the seller decides to call it - I'm sure we've all picked up a mis-named stone or two over the years!

And frankly, if you are buying off someone who actually does know what they are selling you're unlikely to get it at a bargain price, at least in my experience. No, I've had far better stone hunting luck by simply doing it the hard way - noting the physical characteristics of what I'm after and then eyeballing the "whetstone" auction pics.

James.

Thank you Piet, thank you Jimbo - thanks for the answers and thanks for the welcome!

Grecian was my thought, so that's goo. But of course you're right Jimbo - the name doesn't really matter much. I'm not a collector (although I do seem to accumulate an awful lot of stuff) and it's the performance of the hone that's the main thing for me.

I'll be honest though, having bought it without any idea of what it was, I am now curious about this little stone as a small piece of history. I'd like it to come from Llyn Idwal because in my younger days I used to go walking in the hills around there, and I know the area reasonably well (didn't think to bring back any rocks with me - if only I knew then what I know now!). It's good to think that someone quarried a stone from there a hundred years ago, put it in a nice mahogany box, and here I am still using it to sharpen razors today.

And I've told myself that I don't need any more hones now, especially as this one seems to do what I need, but it is fun finding out about these things so I suspect it won't be the last.

Thanks again

W