Quote Originally Posted by JimmyHAD View Post
I have had one and it is a good barber hone, but not magic by any stretch. Not sure about the lumberjacks with the frictionite. I know they pay crazy money for a two sided Norton barber hone. Routinely goes for $600.00 USD if not for more.
It's the lumberjacks. I sold 6 or 8 frictionites last year, and they all went to a guy in australia who was selling them to people for local lumberjack competitions. the guy said that they were used during the competitions (as opposed to before) to touch up axes between runs.

Not one of them went to a shaver, even though I listed them for everyone. I thought one did, because it went to a USA buyer, but the shipping address was in wisconsin and the paypal account was in australia. I tried at first to sell them to the US only, but I got no buyers.

FWIW, I sold all of them (most of them NOS frictionites and super punjabs) for BINs of $180-$225, with the ones on the low end being those that were used a little. The guy who bought them said "let me know if you have any more", of course I don't, and that's the last I talked to him.

The only problem with the sales was that I did them as a favor for someone else who had bought them for $6 each in the 1970s, and thus I sent all of the proceeds from the sale to him, too. He's a friend, of course.

They are a nice barber hone, really nice and like an escher, they are consistent from one stone to the next. They are super luscious as a final stone for carving tools. I kept (and paid for) an 821/825 8 inch bench stone set from the guy I sold the hones for, but I haven't used them for razors much. They have a fantastic feel when you use them, though, but the edge they create is like any other finisher. The same axe man told me he'd take them, too, if I ever want to sell them. The real reason I keep them is the old "well, i don't use them, but if I sold them I'd have trouble replacing them" line of crooked logic.

(lesson to be learned here is if you have one, open it to international sales if you list it on ebay. Same with the norton axe man barber hone if you ever come across one).