Thread: Jnats, Fake Stamps and Soft Stones

Originally Posted by bobski

Agreed on the Wakasa, I recently got a very hard Wakasa, that has proven to be a nice finisher for me, you can get size and value for Wakasa, where other popularly mined stones of similar ability cost a lot more.

I sense wakasa prices will be increasing soon!!

Originally Posted by DaveW

I ate a thuri, too. I think they're not worth the risk because they're not as spectacular as they are said to be. I ate mine because it was a 10x2 yellow green, when I flattened it, it had a stress crack that was stable, but it lost a lot of thickness and then I got about 1/3rd of what I paid for it. It was about as good as a middle of the road japanese stone, maybe not quite - same type of feel but without as much cutting ability. I would pay about $50 for a japanese stone that was as good as a y/g thuri, but I am willing to take a little bit of risk. You could take a dozen risks with random stones that people say they got out of a barber shop. Some percentage of them are bound to be such things.

Early on, they were about $100 (like a 5x2 with a rub stone), new or nearly new with great label. The online razor community has bumped them up, and who knows if that's temporary? If this hobby loses steam as some do (remember people collecting rare disney stuff, scrapbooking, rare baseball cards, stamps, ...?) there is nothing about thuris that makes their attributes that great. And the y/g that I had is of the finest type. The darker ones, I have no clue what people are thinking when they pay hundreds of dollars for them.

Of course, I could be wrong and they could yet reach their peak, but I doubt it's too uncommon for people to get an escher stone, hone with it and say "is that it? Did I just pay $600 for an 'oh well, ok' edge?"

Some Thuris can finish well, but not equally well on all steels. They were very hyped by a member here who was considered a great honer, and he basically was talking them up all the time. As a result the prices went ultra high on eBay, of course there was a business element to all of that.
I personally believe that a good Jnat is as good as it gets for a natural finisher, armed with several different tomonagura it can do almost anything. Still because of the nature of the product, it is not so easy to find the right stone and then the right tomonaguras, it takes some patience and investment.

We are currently really lucky that there is a Suehiro 20k in existance because that stone produces keen and smooth edges when used properly. It also extremely consistent stone over a wide range of steels.

There is one thing that's true. If you take something reasonably good in the land of naturals and it is consistent, it will bring more money. A good chinese stone will do what just about everything else does. A bad one will feel like honing either on a grave stone or a pile of loose fine sand. Those stones don't have to be fast, and it is hard to see the work they're doing because they're black and the slurry blends in.

The thuris (I have honed with three) seem to be consistent, though they do vary, just a fairly narrow range. If you get a bad one, you still shave. If you get a bad jnat, hopefully for cheap, it can have very undesirable characteristics, but pretty much any reasonably dense stone with particles that don't exit - and no toxic parts - you're in business and can match a thuri. Even a soft cnat makes a decent tomonagura if budget is really important. It's ugly looking, but it works.

re: the business basis of the thuris, I guess most of us have been there. When you have something that you paid a lot for, you poo poo and dump (which would be the opposite of the illegal stock strategy of pump and dump - driving the value down before you sell - I have a bad habit of expressing negative opinions even on something I'm holding) or you can be quiet and hope the market will be favorable.

Not to say that there aren't some who spend a wad on a nice y/g and just think the edge is the bees knees, and have no interest in selling it in the future. I just didn't find myself in that group - too much exposure elsewhere first.

The yellow greens honestly get hyped way too much, I would rather have a db or bg any day and be thankful for that hint of extra hardness. They're not my favorite regardless, they score high marks in every department but you can get sharper, smoother, finer elsewhere. I think what made them legendary was relative consistency, EASE OF USE, and the very balanced edge characteristics they give. I would take an old trans ark set up properly or a razor grade charnley 100/100 over a thuri.. Or the nakayama I have... Or a really glassy ultrahard coti

Never saw any color of a thuri that wouldn't put a great shaving edge on a blade. No muss, no fuss. Dream hone for newbies. My favorite YG would be one of the last that I get rid of and I bought all of mine before the prices went nuts.

I personally prefer the crisper edges that arkies provide.

The ease and consistency are the keys to their popularity I think

My vintage thuri turned out to be a low grit muller stone.
It looks really nice though :/

I have a nice B/G now and it performs really well although i'm sure my Nakayama gets the hump when I use it.

Alex is right as always, but for us razor guys, another reason we still have good razor hones around is that they aren't good for much else. They're too hard and usually too slow for knives and tools and frequently too small, and the absolute fineness isn't needed for anything else. A fine sushi knife is probably the closest, but even the best of them don't need a razor hone. As we knife folk say, 'a pot roast never complains'. I like the toothy edge from an Aizu on vegetable knives. I don't know about the precision Japanese woodworking knives, but they may also need a fine stone.

Hard stones also usually don't finish metal well so knife/sword polishers don't want them.

Cheers, Steve

My big problem with the sellers is how they word things with these obviously newer stamped from the wholesaler stones. So a wholesaler feels a stone is of a certain quality and stamps it Maruichi now the seller will imply it was stamped Hatanaka Nakayama when this really maybe a Nakayama, but probably not stamped by Hatanaka, just implying it is that quality. Now as long as the price is not what an original stamped stone would cost I think most that buy these types of stones are buying with caution.

Adding to what Alex has said about the storage of vintage stones, I recall reading of the process of mining the stones back in the day, I think from one of Alex’s blogs.

Where, the miners would bring the stones out from the mine, to sorters at the mouth, who selected the stones most likely to sell and stack them into packs that folks would strap on their backs and schlep down the mountain.

Anything that was too hard or too small, and not worth carrying down the mountain, was tossed over the side into the tailing pile. Remember the majority of hones were dedicated to the tool/knife market, were tradesmen replaced once large stones regularly.

In addition to the hordes of stones, squirreled away there are/were piles of stones at the mine sites, that were once considered unworthy and now commanding prices that would make a razor honer break out a wallet, and make someone pick them out of the pile.

All this and the almost over-night world-wide exposure of the internet and money transfer vehicles like pay pal, have increases the number of buyers, sellers, and inventory.

So, as with most things in this hobby, knowledge is king and let the buyer beware. Do your due diligence.

Personally, I don’t care what the stamp says or if it has one, as long as the stone performs, and I pick it up at a price I am comfortable with. Considering a high grit Shapton or SG sells in the 250 -300 dollar price range, one can buy a very nice stone for that kind of money, for a razor guy, it is a lifetime purchase.