Thread: How to buy a barber’s hone?

At the risk of going out on a limb, I'm going to suggest that barber's hones were the synthetic hones of their day. Since then, the binder used to fuse the abrasives may or may not have altered, possibly or possibly not affecting the desired end-result. One quality that remains consistent is that they seem to have been hard-fired, leading to a more durable brittle effect, especially at the tail end.

From this, I am inclined to suggest that the current crop of ceramic synthetic stones may be the barber's hone of our day. The only drawback is that they are cut far larger than straight razors really require. If one was to cut them down to, say, 2" x 5", and market them as such, then perhaps their similarity to barber's hones of old would be more apparent.