Thread: yohannrjm's first ever antique store hone find

I've been trolling antique stores ever since I was bitten with the straight razor bug - about 10 years ago. I never find anything. They usually have nothing or sometimes an overpriced synthetic combo for honing tools or knives.

Anyway, I picked these slates up today. Nice price and they looked interesting.

They have no labels and are probably unidentifiable, but I'll prepare them and give them a go and see if there are any razor-worthy hones here.

Here they are as I got them. I was intrigued by the greenish one on the right of the ruler. The longest hone is 7 inches long, the two on either side of it are about 6" long and the two on the right of the ruler are about 5" long (though the green one looks like it was cut by a previous owner).



I washed them a bit, and here they are again (this time I put the lighter ones on the right and the darker ones on the left):



The one just to the right of the ruler is a lightish green. The one to the right of it is a slightly darker blue-green. The two smaller ones to the left of the ruler are very dark grey - bordering on black. The largest one is a nice dark grey.

Finally, I lapped them (up to a point - some of them need more work, though I never saw the point in lapping to very edge, as I don't use the last 1/4" or so for honing).



I was thrilled to note that the greenish hone once had a label on the end. There's only a glue stain now, and I wonder what the label was). This hone was once longer. The other end was cut off post-manufacture - I can tell by the different saw marks and the fact that that end is not square.



So, they're all slates. That may be all we'll ever know.

Once I get some razors honed on them, I'll know more.

What do you guys think? Any hope here?

(Round 2 with some non-slate hones will come later this weekend)

Very nice score......
Some great looking hones for sure!
I'm sure others will chime in and try to identify some of these too.
Might have a thuri or 2 in that batch.

I would guess at least two Thuri's, the one with the label 90%

Sure looks like a Y/G Thuri to me. Possibly a D/B as well. Not sure about the rest - any other saw mark pics? Does the largest slate have any blotchiness or figure? Congrats on your first good find!

Well, I couldn't wait, so I tried the largest one on a nice Le Grelot.

If it isn't a Thuringian it's doing a pretty good imitation of one. Nice speed on slurry, and it puts a lovely polish on the edge (at least this one time). Scratch pattern under magnification is similar to other Thuris I've had. HHT (such as it is) was very good.

Now, all I have to do is actually shave with it. I'll do that tomorrow.

Originally Posted by eKretz

Sure looks like a Y/G Thuri to me. Possibly a D/B as well. Not sure about the rest - any other saw mark pics? Does the largest slate have any blotchiness or figure? Congrats on your first good find!

Yep, I thought about taking pics of the saw marks.....and then forgot! Oh well! I'll take some tomorrow.

Nice find, I am glad to see you put them to work right away! Let us know how the shave goes

So, I'm done with the first shave off the largest hone.

It's a pretty standard size for a Thuringian: 7" x 1.5" x 3/4". The hone has a uniform dark steel grey surface, with little to no colour variation.

Honing on it was pretty easy - standard for a Thuringian-like hone.

But the edge!! My beard just fell off when it saw that edge! It was laser-sharp! (Insert other superlatives)

Just kidding! The edge it provided was pretty standard for a nice Thuringian : smooth, very sharp and a very pleasant shaver. My first impressions are that this is among the better Thuringian hones I've used - certainly worthy of using on razors.

Yeah looks like a batch of Thuris. Did you get any info where the hones came from. I got a lot of these batches from old barbers here in germany. Most of them had at least 2, often 3-5 thuringian hones, different sizes - different colors.
Congrats to that find.

Wow, nice haul.