Thread: Nakayama Honyama Habutae

Originally Posted by mainaman

This looks more like Kiita, unless the pic does not show the right color.
You got a great deal there because I have been told those uniform stones are kind of rare and expensive. Hope this works for razors.

Good point on the colour Stefan but the chiselled base shows the creamy Habutae colour. Maybe it is the fault of the pic as you say

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Good point on the colour Stefan but the chiselled base shows the creamy Habutae colour. Maybe it is the fault of the pic as you say

Yeah I hope the OP will update us when he gets the stone.

Well ,

I am not sure what OP stands for but yes I will.
Thanks to all of you for comments and all the help.

Best Regards,

JSZ

Originally Posted by UrsaMaior

Well ,

I am not sure what OP stands for but yes I will.
Thanks to all of you for comments and all the help.

Best Regards,

JSZ

OP is original poster.

JSZ;

Nice looking stone, however as you know looks do not mean anything regarding quality of a Japanese natural razor hone. Only by testing will you know if you have a good one. Here is my Nakayama “mine” habutae “white” with light karasu “crow” on the back. It’s a very hard and slow stone with slurry but puts a fine edge on razors.

The slurry keeps getting finer and finer as you do your X-strokes. Finish with water only and very light strokes. While this stone could be a final finish, it is not my final finisher. The last pic is a more normal habutae coloration and very high end Nakayama habutae with a shooting star. Have fun.

Mike

Hey Modine ,did you buy that Habutae in the last pic ? It was on my bench for weeks. Magic stone on chippy steels.

JSZ

I quote Yamashita So-san

"Yes, Habutae is a pure white very expensive drapery used for kimono. The whiter Shiro Suita has a nick name Habutae because of the similarity of the colour."


This quote came from the JapaneseWoodworkingForum in a thread called Natural Stone Mystery 6/12/2007. A great thread by the way if you are interested in Japanese sharpening stones.

Your stone reads,

The kanji on the top left reads: Sho Hon Yama Awasedo (Original Mountain Sharpening Finishing Stone), and at the upper right Habutae (Purest White), and at the bottom left Betsusen (Best Quality).


Also understandably there is some confusion about the word Habutae. Acording to So-san, there is a strata in the mines outside of Kyoto that is known as the Shiro Suita Strata and it is the deepest strata in the geology and just below the Hon Suita Strata and both of these strata produce the hardest suita stones.


Now Shiro literally means White, but not all Shiro Suita stone are pure white, but within the Shiro Suita Strata there were stones known as Habutae Shiro Suita and they were pure white and very hard, fine and exceedingly rare and these strata are presently all depleated. Yours acording to the photos is not one of those pure white stones. For comparrison the whiteness of these Habutae stones could be comparred to the best and whitest Koma nagura stone. The word Habutae originated in the kimono trade to describe the pure white and thin silk used as lining in super high quality kimono.


The stamps on your stone are basic generic stamps that all miners have in a little box in a drawer in their office, I have seen them. One miner I know has at least if not more than 15 different stamps that spelled out: the best, the finest, original mountain, suita, hon suita, finest suita, etc, and I have a stone that is marked White Horse. A lot of miners also use historical references in their stamps. I hope this helps somewhat. Alx