Thread: Fake hones, how common are they?

When I hear "fake hone" my mind usually immediately goes to the same place as when I hear "fake razor", which is... wouldn't it be more trouble than it's worth? And until now i've been pretty safe with that logic buying and trading online.

Story time: I bought a "The Genuine Water Hone" complete with escher chalice on the label from someone online. The box looked correct and the stone within it looked to be the right color in the picture so I pulled the trigger. When I received it I was a little concerned because the hone was much thinner than this type of hone that i had seen in the past, probably half the height of a "NOS" one. but that's not the end of the world, perhaps it was just heavily used. And then I lapped it and saw that this stone is not similar to an escher. In fact it reflected light like a CF or something of the like.
Put a razor to it, and it was absolute rubbish. I could get better results off a piece of limestone in my back yard.
Safe to say, I got duped and feel pretty silly by not asking for better pictures, etc...

So now for the question. How common is this to happen? To me, cutting a stone and finding an escher box is way more effort than the $100-$150 payout that these stones are currently going for on the bay. But i've proven myself wrong here.
I'd like to acquire more stones in the future. Especially Eschers. But if getting a fake every now and again is commonplace, then I might just stick with what I have already. Sure is a good way to cure the HAD i guess...
I've seen several clearly fake full sized eschers on the bay and they're pretty easy to spot, but these smaller ones are more difficult. Especially when paired with an appropriate box and label.

Any input from more experienced members would be great!

Can you post pictures?

Originally Posted by mainaman

Can you post pictures?

knew that was coming

I'll post when I get home after work.

Given modern technology, I don't think it would be very difficult to make a fake Escher label and then glue it to a chinese hone.

Well i bought a lot of Thuringian hones and Eschers the last three years...i personally nearly never found a faked stone....

That everybody sells slates and adds an Escher or Thuringian into the main description is something totally different and shows the procedure behind it.....

If you mean "clearly full sized" Eschers do you mean ones with a label ?

Originally Posted by mainaman

Can you post pictures?

Would also have asked for it ;-)

Originally Posted by Utopian

Given modern technology, I don't think it would be very difficult to make a fake Escher label and then glue it to a chinese hone.

Yeah, but a Chinese hone would be better than a piece of limestone from the back yard.

Honestly I think Eschers are one of the few that might be 'worth' forging. A lot of naturals either fall into the 'still mined' category, or are tougher to fake. Or both, like coticules. But Thuris, and Eschers in particular, seem to command large premiums so I could see someone stuffing a slate sized to fit into an Escher box and hoping it will fly.

You say that it seems more trouble than it's worth, but I'm not so sure.

I have very little experience with hones at all really. I come on here and read about how much you all love Eschers and then I go looking on the bay. It would NOT be difficult to fool me as I have never really seen one in the flesh anyway. If someone comes across a box and they are minded to make a few quid (bucks) at someone else's expense then they don't seem to have any scruples about doing so.

I was fooled once on another item and eventually eBay awarded the case to me and I got my money back. The problem was if I had to bill them for the hours I spent chasing it I probably earned a couple of pennies per hour.

I am always very careful now when I look online for things. I am always grateful when people like you share their experiences too. It is much easier and cheaper to learn from someone else. I do sympathise fully with you but at the same time I am really thankful to you for sharing this story.

Now when I come to buying something like this I will look here first. Whilst I will most likely pay more I know that I will also get a fair deal.

I suppose on the plus side we are talking about quite a niche hobby here, I don't think that there are too many con-men out there with sufficient knowledge to make this a common occurrence.

Thanks again and I really hope you get to the bottom of this without too much hassle.

Actually it would be pretty easy to fake a Chinese hone with Escher logos.

I usually ask for pictures of saw marks and compare them to my own bones which I know to be real eschers. But even though I collect hones I primarily use them to hone.

I don't care if they have a label if they are good thurigians [emoji1]


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I've bought all of mine live and in person so I can see them first, if I was buying on ebay i would want to see clear close ups of the saw marks and labels. It would be hard to duplicate decades of label water damage and the paper they used and the saw marks and patina would be hard copy on another type stone