Thread: Japanese Natural $$$

Originally Posted by Jimbo

I imagine there has to come a limit at some point. Just the basic properties of the steel and temper if nothing else. I find it difficult to believe a more expensive stone could make a marked improvement over what I already get off the asagi.

It just must be a matter of size and rarity with these multi-thousand dollar stones.

James.

As Alex mentioned the really expensive ones are just consistently uniform and you know that after 1/2" into the stone you are still getting the same quality grit. Cheap stones, cheap by the standards of Nakayama, would have some "impurity" not uniform color, or not exactly the true color etc.
My Asagi just because was not the true color(just slightly darker) cost me 500 bucks, and according to So it would have been 2k+ if it was not for the color.
Another consideration is the stone performance. I learned in my talks with So, that Asagi are very scratchy and therefore not all Asagi are good for razors, only the ones with finest and least scratchy grain. Kiita is even more expensive because its not as abundant as Asagi, since the layer was depleted before the Asagi layer. Kiita also is not really suitable for razors unless there is a very hard stone which is rare and brings the price even higher. Kiita in general is for tools and knives because they are not generally hard, not as hard as Asagi at least.