Thread: Combo Coticules

I recently received an email from a confused member accusing me of scamming folks with my combo coticules. I was rather upset because, I am a lot of things, but not a theif or a scam artist. Most of you that know me, or have emailed, pm'd, or spoke to me on the phone can vouch for me. I've sold many people stones and various products, and never heard one complaint. I just want to set the record straight, No pun intended....

Someone emailed me and said that all Coticules are glued to a black base only, and that my "combo stones' must have come from somewhere else, and not Ardennes Coticule. I explained to him that even though combo's are not advertised on Rob Celis's site, they do in fact exist, and many of us have them. I took the best pics I could of mine, and wet the stones to show the character of them, but I don't know. This never crossed my mind before. The bout on the far right is a normal bout, Coticule glued to the black base, all the rest in the pics are combo's.....That last one is a close up of a natural combo, Man, I love my new Nikon camera....
I know it's really hard to see in these pics, but you can see that the lines are not perfectly straight, I wish I could get the speckles in the bbw to show up, but I can't....Thanks everyone....Rich

NO ITEMS WERE SOLD!!!!!!!!! This person mearly inquired about the existence of Combo Coticules......

Combos do exist... I use a NATURAL combo on almost all of my restorations and I really like it. I have not bought from you, but I follow your posts and I have seen only great feedback from others who have talked about your stones. In fact, when there's a little slush money, I am going tho check up on getting a slurry stone from you for my combo. A Combo is not a scam.

With all the talk and pictures on the site in the past few weeks... it's amazing someone would think that way. While I don't have a natural combo, mine is a glued combo, I've seen them and WANT ONE!!!!

Ok, further clarification is in order for the coticule uneducated;

As Rich and others know, there are two kinds of "Combination" Coticules:

1) NATURAL Combination stones. Not bonded. Even better because nature created them that way. BBW and coti together naturally in one stone. Nature creating a combo whetstone and a beautiful one at that. What could be better?

2) BONDED Combination stone. These are no longer manufactured. Prior to the bonding of black slate to the coticule, the Belgian mines bonded coticule to BBW bases; gluing them together. Having such a stone automatically dates it as "vintage" since bonding to BBW hasn't been done for at least 3 decades or more IIRC.

I hope this helps. And no, Rich, you're not a scam artist.

Chris L

I brought a small yellow kosher grade from rob and he sent me a combo at no extra charge so they do exist not sure if it glued or natural how can you tell natural combo?

Gary, glued combos will always have a crisp line separating the two halves. Natural combos (look at the second picture in this post) most often have a transition line where the two types of stone are naturally blended together.

Chris L

Originally Posted by gary haywood

I brought a small yellow kosher grade from rob and he sent me a combo at no extra charge so they do exist not sure if it glued or natural how can you tell natural combo?

+1 Chris, Gary look closely at the pics, The naturals do not look perfect.
If you take a regular old Coticule, the black Schist, or Black backing meets up perfectly to the Coticule, a nice straight line. The top pic, the stone on the far right is a regular schist backed Coti. The rest are natural combos, You can see how wavy the line in between the Coti and BBW. Some have more Coticule, others have more BBW. The very bottom pic is a close up, you can see how the stones seem to blend together almost seemlessly....Rich

Hmmm... I dont know. I would need to have one in my possession to know for sure....

Originally Posted by zib

Someone emailed me and said that all Coticules are glued to a black base only, and that my "combo stones' must have come from somewhere else, and not Ardennes Coticule. I explained to him that even though combo's are not advertised on Rob Celis's site, they do in fact exist, and many of us have them.

I know I've posted this photo too many times but it applies again here. The one on top and the one on the bottom are the coticules I got from Rob at Ardennes. The bottom one is a natural. The bout on top is the only one bonded to slate. The rest are all combos clearly not "glued to a black base only."

I think we are going to have to think of some other reason to impugn Rich's character, as this one's a bust.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I know I've posted this photo too many times but it applies again here.

I do hope you're taking proper care of all those rocks.