Thread: Help while waiting for my Nakayama to get here

Did you get it from this guy?

JAPANESE whetstone 70+old NAKAYAMA plane sword razor - eBay (item 200359676682 end time Jul-07-09 15:33:03 PDT)

I asked him a question but he never replied. The characters do not look like the ones on the more traditional Nakayamas. They are comparatively cheap so I would really like to know what you think of it.

He's the only one I know of that has the smiley little goofballs on his whetstone pics.

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I came pretty close to buying from him.

I will let you know once I get it. Taking a gamble I know. If you look at his other rocks there are some with traditional looking Kanjii.
For the record- O_S's site does not say genuine Nakayama, it says Junshohonzan, or pure correct original mountain-which in turn means it probably came from Nakayama. From what I have gathered, Nakayama is a mine on the mountain, which has become known as honyama.
O_S also only has the stamps for his own site. If you look around there are a lot more stamps than just what he has.

Of these Kanjii I am 99% certain the first three say the same thing as the last three of O_S's "original nakayama" stamp- shouhonzan- meaning correct original mountain or something to that effect. The fourth is hon- original again I believe, the fifth is somethign to the effect of awase and the last is hin, which is similar to best or finest. So my interpretation is basically correct original mountain, original stone finest. I specifically asked him if this is an awase (finishing stone) and he said yes. We'll see how fine it is though. I bet someone can read them better though- and if you can, please please share.

Now, to answer the questions about the supplier. He is a whole saler he claims- normally he sells to japanese retailers. The auction you linked to is the same guy and similar rocks, but they are smaller and he'll just send you a random rock basically. I was arguing with him a bit (language barrier) till it arose that he is basically selling of less than perfect ones through that auction, ones that are still use able, but slightly smaller, or have a crack (these Japanese stones reportedly still function with cracks, just not usually for razors) or other things. In the ad somewhere he says he will hand select a premium for you if you want. So after I mentioned what I need it for he said I can find you a premium one if you want. So I said how much will that run. He said x amount and I was like, well thats decent. So we began talking, and he came up with a few random rock sand I was like, I need it for traditional blades like katanas. And he was like oh! For this much money, I'll go hand pick and test a few and let you know what I've got. So now this is what I bought.

I don't know why, I suspect it has to do with caligraphy, but because is a wholesaler he actually deals with this and he wants to charge more for more kanjii. Says something about too much handling for him to do. Plus you lap the kanjii off so I'm not too concerned. I'm guessing its a question of cursive vs. print, so this is functional writing vs. the traditional ones which is more artistic as well.

Good information here:

Japan Tool - Technique&Knowledge - Natural Stone Mines

I talked to him also, He never got to the point where he said he would pick one for me. He did say he had a bunch in boxes and didn't want to do all that handling. I finally gave up as the language barrier was just too much for me to be sure I was

PM me what x amount was if it's not too much trouble.

I guess that's the way he is. I've asked him about different size tools as advertised on his site and never heard back, different scenarios of similar contacts, short worded answers etc. If you just buy something though all goes smooth He's cool in my book.

I wonder, telling him you wanted to polish swords, if you did not get one of those kumori stones seen on ebay? ( I see the title says nakayama; still seems like a fair question.

If not by what you were told; you can probably tell by hardness

Old_School please do not take offense. I was not attacking you in anyway. I was simply stating that just because you don't have a character on your list does not mean it cannot be on a legitimate hone! Thank you for translating by the way. Also, when I said "I asked him..." I did not mean that was your (O_S's) response, I meant that was the seller's response.

Also, I realise that awase does not mean it is razor quality. However, awase means it has a chance to be razor quality. Aoto for example would be a definite no no. And I realise that pure and original mean the same thing, I was just giving a literal translation that was given to me by a scholar of Japanese at Cornell. I will not dispute one person's translation, because I know idioms and such are translated differently by different native speakers (I know enough to be dangerous with German, just not enough to be truly comfortable calling myself a native speaker). However, of the three people I consulted, two said pure correct original mountain, and you said genuine correct original mountain. Correct original mountain however all sources seem to agree means something like "verified Nakayama". Interesting though that one of them claimed those three characters were Shohonzan and you and the other say it is shohonyama. Maybe something like a synonym.
I also know hin maybe had nothing to do with awase. I just stated this as the 4th and 5th words. I am sorry that someone else translated this one badly. They said it most likely meant something to do with best stone goods and I had forgotten the exact translation. Please understand that I am a Native English speaker proficient in German and somewhat experienced in Afrikaans- I have no experience in Eastern languages, so patching three similar translations (one of them not complete, as I did not ask you (O_S) to translate the one I bought) was a bit of a challenge. I can't tell you how many rocks and translations I looked at in my efforts. Please excuse any mistakes or shortfalls I have made. I tried my best.

Anyway. I did not mean it as a personal attack. I'm sorry you took it that way. I am simply excited by a stone that earlier I admitted was a gamble, but at the price I got it for, its a gamble well worth it. As any person I have spoken to has said, natural stones vary from stone to stone, and just because you have tested 5 and they are great, doesn't mean they are the only 5 great hones out of that mountain. If I were you I wouldn't have translated other rocks either- I would have no reason to. But I disagree that you dismiss them as inferior. And actually, if someone would like to go over to NAKAYAMASHOP and verify, this seller has also translated his Nakayamas. Out of fairness, I spoke with him about Nakayama qualities. Also out of fairness, I spoke with Old_School and he did help me translate. It kinda seemed in both cases that both sellers were promoting their own goods though. Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with that, but I like to shop around.

So when someone came up at about 1/5 the price and tested stones for me, I figured its worth the gamble. Even if it ends up being 8k, it's a 10x2.5 8k for only slightly more than a synth 8k. Plus it is more beautiful. Plus there is a chance it will be better than 8k. I know this was a gamble. However I feel it was a reasonable gamble as I consulted 3 sources for translations and 5 people for quality issues. Three sellers of Nakayamas, two users. Two of the three sellers were third party and helped with translation, in addition to my collective resources at Cornell.

To be fair, I asked the seller for a translation and he said it roughly means Nakayama original stone. So. Because I am naturally suspicious I specifically excluded him from all advice, except for the actual testing, as his word as the only person able to touch the rocks is the best I have.

I'm sorry for stepping on people's toes. I will drop this topic, make a short post when I get the stone/have it tested by some honemeisters as to its quality, and the world will keep spinning. I guess I'm a bit down now that I was so excited about a gamble and some razor porn of my own but was just shot down. Oh well. Next time.

Khaos nobody sells their best stones. I wouldn't / would you?

I think you are going to like this stone, maybe slightly more or less depending on what you are comparing to.

On one hand, just like having a honemeister edge as a benchmark, we each really do need the very best awasedo(plural) for our razors and fine tools. on the other hand; we are not all honemeisters, we have to shave with the edge we make and we have to use the rocks we have to do it.

If you can appreciate the beauty, simplicity of the latter you will be fine

If it weren't for sharpening stones i'd probably be in bed, all bristley and bearded. there is something emmensely satisfying about having a hone worth bragging about, and these I'm sure you see, can really get in your head and make you need more

Originally Posted by kevint

If you can appreciate the beauty, simplicity of the latter you will be fine

If it weren't for sharpening stones i'd probably be in bed, all bristley and bearded. there is something emmensely satisfying about having a hone worth bragging about, and these I'm sure you see, can really get in your head and make you need more

I appreciate the fact that you said "need more" rather than "want more," which is an entirely different, and for some of us, foreign concept!

Also, my kudos to Khaos. You obviously have done a lot more homework on your Japanese hone purchase than I did on mine. I relied on recommendations and trial and error but I certainly did not learn as much about them as you did. Stop asking for my advice!

I struggled over that Utopian, and decided it really was need. If I think I have too many sharpening stones; then I figure i must need more and different things to sharpen. So we make a life around steel edges with the axe-rocks hoe-stone and the hunting-hone, the kitchen stone, plain old knife hones plane, chisel and sickle stones, razor and even stone hones