Thread: The Frankonian

​Actually, if you need some help, let me know. I have a couple friends in Germany who could do some calling if I explained the situation correctly enough.

I will ask Olivia if anybody is still interested, as far as i know these stones were from an own found source, where ever this is....

As already mentioned i know that there are different opinions around these stones, i read that some prefer a thuringian for example others wont give their frankonian away...

Here is Olivias Stone page:
http://www.olivia-seife.de/steinvergleich.htm

One seem to be the same picture like the SRP here above is brown Frankonian...

Here is where it all started (on the german GRF...Gut rasiert Forum....)

http://forum.nassrasur.com/showtopic...id=12292&time=

Leslemming was the one who did test the stone in comparison to others....
Sorry its in german...if any further information is requested i can translate some of the informations...

Good luck getting a reply from Olivia. She has been elusive for years and her being a founding member of another razor forum that Bart from coticule.de presided over, at the time of renewal of the site she was 'incommunicado' and so the site went under.

I corresponded with her for a while around that time, wasting my time on telling her exactly what I wanted and establishing a received-by date to allow me enough time to cancel the PayPal transaction. Everything was set, but she didn't send the PayPal request and numerous emails I sent asking why went unanswered. Then I asked Bart about it and when he said she was unreachable I counted myself lucky that I hadn't parted with any money.

As far as I know she is not and has not been a vendor for some cosiderable time - years - and is still incommunicado, although another enthusiast directed my attention to her brief appearance on some german (?) Tv show or podcast sometime after she went missing.

The stone came from her brother, who has a mine specialising in utility slate for landscaping, flooring and tiling. Being incommunicado must run in the family: he has an email address and a website but never bothered to reply to my emails.

I remember that prior to his web book Henk Bos and his wife visited this quarry and the owner gave him a couple of hones. I think I recall that correctly - no doubt Henk will correct me if I am wrong.

I gave up the quest in the end, partly out of chagrin and partly due to other dubious info on Olivia's site. If you are going to part with hard earned cash for something described as the bees-knees, then you bdtter have complete faith in your source's credentials, and to be quite frank I did not.

Regards,
Neil

Thanks Neil! Its all coming back to me now. You're like institutional memory around here lol. Its great to have back!!

Anyway, now that you have jogged my memory, I recall concluding that they never had the ability to provide a consistent product but loved the lime light!

Its as good a theory as anyone else's lol!!

It's too bad really - I really lusted over that E. German hunk oh rock!

With all due respect to the serious rockhounds out there. Lynn probably hones more razors in a month than most of us will hone in a life time. If I 'test' someone else's stone, which I am extremely reluctant to do normally, it will be with a few razors. Lynn hones 500 razors on a stone before he comes to a conclusion. Just saying .....

I'm not saying that everyone should just read what a respected source says about their experience with a given hone of course. By all means try different stones regardless of how the other guy likes it. That is what HAD is all about .

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

With all due respect to the serious rockhounds out there. Lynn probably hones more razors in a month than most of us will hone in a life time. If I 'test' someone else's stone, which I am extremely reluctant to do normally, it will be with a few razors. Lynn hones 500 razors on a stone before he comes to a conclusion. Just saying .....

I'm not saying that everyone should just read what a respected source says about their experience with a given hone of course. By all means try different stones regardless of how the other guy likes it. That is what HAD is all about .

Is there someplace we can get a review on stones by Lynn?? Or by all of the honing gods on this site?? That sure would be helpful. I looked to the library but didn't find anything.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

With all due respect to the serious rockhounds out there. Lynn probably hones more razors in a month than most of us will hone in a life time. If I 'test' someone else's stone, which I am extremely reluctant to do normally, it will be with a few razors. Lynn hones 500 razors on a stone before he comes to a conclusion. Just saying .....

I'm not saying that everyone should just read what a respected source says about their experience with a given hone of course. By all means try different stones regardless of how the other guy likes it. That is what HAD is all about .

Therein lies the problem. If (unknown to us, of course) a 'new' natural hone has good to bad ratio of 1 to 3 and a honer of some influence gets a good one, hones 500 razors on it and announces that it is manah from heaven, then three quarters of the people who bought one after reading his review are going to suspect that all his rocks aren't kept on his table!

Lets not forget the mantra about naturals - they differ, sometimes markedly, from each other. You would have to be a nut to stake your reputation on just one example. No matter how good you are, you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

No, one man's say-so is not enough. What is needed is a number of capable honers testing different examples of the same type of hone. Enough to form a meaningful cross section, and thats quite a few reviewers.

Passing the same example from hand to hand will not give us a meaningful analysis at all: if the honers are worth their salt, and the example hone is a good one, they will all have the same findings, similarly they will find the same for a bad hone.

Even supposing you could get enough reviewers (the easy part) and enough franconians (for examples same) to test (expensive and doubtful), then what to make of the conflicting results if the hone has a high fail rate? Simple logic dictates that people will attach importance to what their favourite honer reports and doubt the ability of the nay-sayers.

A thankless task for those involved, methinks!

Regards,
Neil

I hear eschers are underwhelming! (Waits for prices to fall)

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Therein lies the problem. If (unknown to us, of course) a 'new' natural hone has good to bad ratio of 1 to 3 and a honer of some influence gets a good one, hones 500 razors on it and announces that it is manah from heaven, then three quarters of the people who bought one after reading his review are going to suspect that all his rocks aren't kept on his table!

Lets not forget the mantra about naturals - they differ, sometimes markedly, from each other. You would have to be a nut to stake your reputation on just one example. No matter how good you are, you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear.

No, one man's say-so is not enough. What is needed is a number of capable honers testing different examples of the same type of hone. Enough to form a meaningful cross section, and thats quite a few reviewers.

Passing the same example from hand to hand will not give us a meaningful analysis at all: if the honers are worth their salt, and the example hone is a good one, they will all have the same findings, similarly they will find the same for a bad hone.

Even supposing you could get enough reviewers (the easy part) and enough franconians (for examples same) to test (expensive and doubtful), then what to make of the conflicting results if the hone has a high fail rate? Simple logic dictates that people will attach importance to what their favourite honer reports and doubt the ability of the nay-sayers.

A thankless task for those involved, methinks!

Regards,
Neil

Maybe if we got all the senior mods to create a "findings page" where they debate thier findings we would at least have a great place to begin our debates. Its all good that we don't push what be believe in order to be civil but this is supposed to be fun - not a chase to the bottom. Without consensus, that's sometimes what it becomes for the noob.

Why?? Because People all over the web push junk to shavers uncaring! There is surely enough consensus here amongst us to save many of us who are sold by uncaring vendors on the net.

I started a thread about the library being a great place to begin benchmarking! I love Lynn's detailing of the pyramid system under honing. Does it work for me?? Not so well. But he added that Glen believed in the "it has to shave on the 4k stone.". That did work for me. I would love to hear what Binardo has to say though!! Were all the mods to pipe in!!! What a resource for us to use to debate the claims of the likes of me when I sell stropping on the magic brick I'll sell you for only $4,990.

Well that's my two cents!

Just to be clear lots of guys don't stick around long enough to see fads come and go.

Were I one of those guys I would have given up after my magic coti didn't quite pan out thinking I just didn't have the skill!