Thread: Need help ID German hone

Originally Posted by eKretz

I was going to say yesterday that the stone looked a bit coarse to be a Thuri (and is that porosity I see?) but I'm viewing on a phone and thought maybe I was misinterpreting images, but by the OPs response I'm wondering if this is a coarser stone - in which case it might just have been shoved in a Thuri box.

That is my opinion as well, seems coarser than the Thuringians I have studied in photos and honing videos.
It looks rather porous yes, I will try to take some clearer photos in daylight.

Originally Posted by Geezer

In my opinion, if the stone is a tight fit in the box, it is probably original. If loose anybody's guess. The photos are unclear.
~Richard

I wouldn't say a tight fit, it doesn't match lengthwise either.
It was "glued" to a wooden base, not the base of the actual box.
It seems to be stuck in there though, it's not loose.

Originally Posted by doorsch

Yeah Richard agreed, the pictures are not perfect...probably we can have some daylight shots ?

Of course, will try to take some new daylight photos tomorrow.
It's almost 12 AM now in Sweden. [emoji3]

Is it just me or the stone looks like it has darker marks/lines in a somewhat uniform dark "background"?
Not all Thuringians are razor fine, and I suspect that it's not a Thuringian, in the classic sense, but something similar from Germany and rarer.

As I promised, here are some clearer pictures of the "Erbo" hone in question.



Here are some more pictures alongside a new hone that I just received, this one looking more like a classic Thuringian, also seems to be of higher grit...



Some more pictures of the other Thuringian, for comparison:

It still looks like a typical slate for me! Probably its from one of the other quarries....

Did you test it compared to others you showed ?

Here is a small color range, where you can see which range is possible on thuringian hones

Well probably you got a special thuringian waterhone there, which comes from a quarry that was operated in the 1920's. The hones are black with a soemhow grainy look.
Here are some examples:




Compared to a normal light green thuringian:



There also green variants of that grainy looking hones, but I am not sure if they have been mined at the same quarry:



For the name Erbo we can only speculate. Of course Ernst Bonsman is an idea, but this company mainly trades under the name Three-Anchor-Works and had their special trademark with the 3 anchors. All hones I have from this company, mostly small ones that were added to the scalpell or cutter knifes (mostly under the name Estima) have been labelled with the anchor mark. Also under the listed additional trademarks of this company you won't find the name Erbo.

Another guess would be that it is a variation of the name Erbe from the company Heinrich Adolf Erbe, which was a very famous company for cutlery works in the early 20th century. They were located in Schmalkalden, Thuringia, not far away from the thuringian quarries.

Originally Posted by hatzicho

For the name Erbo we can only speculate. Of course Ernst Bonsman is an idea, but this company mainly trades under the name Three-Anchor-Works and had their special trademark with the 3 anchors. All hones I have from this company, mostly small ones that were added to the scalpell or cutter knifes (mostly under the name Estima) have been labelled with the anchor mark. Also under the listed additional trademarks of this company you won't find the name Erbo.

Another guess would be that it is a variation of the name Erbe from the company Heinrich Adolf Erbe, which was a very famous company for cutlery works in the early 20th century. They were located in Schmalkalden, Thuringia, not far away from the thuringian quarries.

Yeah you might be right Peter! None of the trademarks of Bonsmann mentions ERBO....

But using this typo of shortcuts is well used in Solingen thats why i mentioned this possibility....i asked a good friend of mine who said its typical for Solingen.

CASCHMISO = Carl Schmitz Solingen
ROBUSO = Robert Buntenbach Solingen
PEASO = Paul Adrian Solingen

Quite a possibility - sure.
But normally then the abbreviation should be BOSO or EBOSO for mentioning SO for Solingen in the name.

Originally Posted by doorsch

It still looks like a typical slate for me! Probably its from one of the other quarries....

Did you test it compared to others you showed ?

Here is a small color range, where you can see which range is possible on thuringian hones

Did you just write "small selection" Sebastian? [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]


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