Thread: Help while waiting for my Nakayama to get here

Originally Posted by khaos

If possible can anyone translate the characters for me?

My kanji skills are limited but I think the characters on the round hone indicate that it really likes the other hone.

If you look at the seller's site, virtually every stone there has the same characters on the top. I would guess that it is the company's mark, or finishing stone, or (with my expertise) "eat at Chen's".

It almost looks like the same mark at the end.

It is not the mark "genuine Nakayama" which is shown on O_S's site.

Did he say what this stone is- where from etc?

Most of the stones on his site with these markings are labeled "Japanese whetstone central Kyoto Honyama Yamashiro"

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.

天然ç¥çŸ³ ä¼Šäºˆç¥ æ£æœ¬å±± å±±åŸŽéŠ˜ç¥ ç™½é·¹åŒ…ä¸� 玄ç¿� 鉋 é‘¿

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.

Originally Posted by Utopian

My kanji skills are limited but I think the characters on the round hone indicate that it really likes the other hone.

LOL, thanks for the chuckle!

That sure is a beautiful stone. I can't wait til next year when I have refreshed my hone buying account... I gotta have one of those Japanese stones.