Quote Originally Posted by SirMike View Post
Yeah, I know it is hard to impossible to find used stones and agree that no one sells theirs! Where are you finding the three stones for about $150-160? I am checking around and for those three stones, 1k Naniwa, 4k/8k Norton and a 12k Naniwa is coming in at over $200.
If you want full progression from 1k to 12k then yes, it's close to $200, but you said you do not want that and want only the minimum. Which is either the 12k naniwa, or the 8k/4k norton, or a good barber hone. Or a coticule, or a good thuringian, or even the PHIG hone if you want to trade the industrial precision of man man hones for the romance of a piece of rock.
And if you want to get something without the extensive proven track record of these there are even more possibilities.

My advise would be to not overthink it and just get one of the options that everybody has already recommended. If you don't like it or decide you want something else and can't afford to keep all of it you should be able to sell it at a discount as clearly the supply side on the secondary market is pretty weak.

You can also post an ad in the classifieds.