Thread: Japanese Natural or just old stained synthetic?

Hi everyone,

Yet another stone question... I posted something about this one a while ago, but only included scans of the box (with the name "White Stone - Deluxe Hone)as I had no camera.

I am wondering if this stone is a japanese natural or a rather old and stained synthetic. Having thus far only handled heavy duty carborundum stones for chippy chisels, I'm not clued up on the finer stones. The lapped surface is fairly uniformly creamy, but with a few areas of red/pink. The back and sides are all square (which says synthetic to my novice mind), but stained/darker.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
J.

Edit: Apologies for the deplorable image quality. Best I could do with a mighty 3 kilopixel webcam