Thread: Hohenzollern - Abziehsteine

I've been waiting to get my hands on one of these for years.
Well it finally came in the other day.
These are Thuringian stones that some have rated higher than Escher's.
I do know that they are rarer and much, much harder to find.
How it compares to my Escher, we'll soon see.


Any info. that anyone has on these would be greatly appreciated.
It would also be cool to hear from anyone that owns one.

Pete <:-}

I don't have one, so I confidently can tell you that Eschers are much better.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I don't have one, so I confidently can tell you that Eschers are much better.

Don't make me laugh!!!

Pete <:-}

Congrats! I think I saw that in eBay and it went for a pretty penny. Let us know how you like it!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Haha i ask my self who are the guys which rates these higher then Eschers ;-) most likely i believe they have the same origin and might have come from Escher itself, but well who knows....

I agree that they are rarer in that thinking that the selling period of those was much smaller then the period Escher Hones have been sold....

I got 2, the big one is my avatar: 7x2 1/2" I have a smaller one as well that is greenish and even finer. The large one has a signature on it that I believe is Droescher's; the smaller one was imported by Farwell Ozmun Kirk & Co. Very similar to Pete's.

Yeah my guess is Droescher imported these before he bought the mill. So before 1901. Just a guess though. I am with doorsch I think they came from the same holes in the ground as escher. Did they specially select these as a better quality? My guess there would be if they were better why would escher not badge them themselves? I think they were the same just sold to other distributors. The best way of guessing on the idea of quality would be to find a catalog from that time which sold both and see which one commanded a better price. Still wouldn't truly answer the question, but would show which they thought was better back then.
Now was there possibly a time period where certain exceptional layers where extracted that maybe a bit better than others and these were mined during that time possible, but escher would have those same layers from that time too.

It is a beautiful stone though and I always wanted to find one, but the prices always go to high for me and I have more Thuringians than I need.

I've had two or three, cannot remember. Not as good as Eschers IMHO, and not at all the same dimensions. Escher manufactured a variety of sizes and the Hohenzollerns I've seen/had correspond with none of those sizes.

While not as 'good' as Escher IMHO, they are quite good on their own merits and beautiful stones. Yours is a particularly fine example.

Hohenzollern, Escher, Droescher, Brächer, DSG,......... - all Thuringians of the same basic quality, coming from a few small quarries around one small town in Thuringia. The quarries are not more than 1mile appart each other. Some hones carry a label, some companies did more export than others and were known better because they simply sell more hones worldwide.
So maybe the selection of hones was more focused on quality by the one or other company. But according to my exerience, the quality of the sold thuringians was very good in the 19th and beginning 20th century - independend of the company or label. It becomes a little less in quality at the time, the demand was very high (i.e. after WW1) and the good layers were harder to mine. Also the change in the marketing structure of this business in Thuringia at the end of the beginning 20th century, when every miner could sell his own products, is a reason of decreasing quality.

I had posted some infos on the specific Hohenzollern honesa while ago in this thread:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...ml#post1354341

Best regards Peter

Just a big thank you to Hatzicho!!
Thank you for taking the time to post and for putting the link in.
It is very informative and just what I was hoping for.

Pete <:-}