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I dug a set of 30+ year old stones out of the closet and am having trouble identifying them. The box is labeled "hard arkansas" "soft arkansas" and "washita" but I don't think they're in order in the box and I can't tell them apart. Rubbing a fingertip and a fingernail over them, they don't feel "different" enough to differentiate them. Any help would be appreciated.
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Bottom one in first photo looks like washita I have.
The bottom one does look like a Washita, a soft Arkansas stone. It is a toss up which of the other two is a soft or hard as both hard and soft came in both colors.
The only way is to try them and see what kind of finish they produce.
There is much written about Arkansas stones and every seller, mine and distributor, seemed to have their own grading system and brand names, so there is no single naming/ grading system. Add to that vintage stones are different in color, appearance and performance than new marketed stones. Just because they are newly marketed does not mean they are newly mined. Stories of stone hoards exist.
Additionally so called Arkansas stones are not all from Arkansas and they do not have grit equivalent ratings to synthetic stone and do not produce stria that can be compared to synthetic stones and being natural stones even if you could, a grit rating one, it would be for your stones only. A similar looking stone may perform completely differently.
So, the bottom line is to test your 3 stones on some good tool or knife steel and see for yourself which performs better or different from the rest. You may have all “soft” Arkansas stones, or a hard stone that is a finisher. Some old Lilly White stones were finishers, though they are called Arks, they were mined in New Hampshire.
The Lilly Whites were pure white, I don’t think you have a Lilly White, but you never know.
