Thread: Very unique and interesting stone in Chinatown

By the way since you guys have been so much helpful I thought to share this with you. Here in downtown vancouver we have a store called Tinland in Chinatown. They have a huge variety of sharpening stones, and one particular stone that came to my attention is a huge stone, 5 inch thick by 4 inch wide and about 12 inches long. The stone stays white when its dry, but when you use it then becomes black. The asian guy who owns the store said that this is a very rare stone from mines in Japan and its hard to determine the grit since its one solid stone but he estimates it to be around or above 20000 grit. The stone does feel very fine and produces some decent slurry when wet. He is selling it for $19 and comes in a wrapped plastic, no fancy labels or packaging. I asked him what type of stone it is and he said its mainly used for Samurai swords and one stone can last 5 generations :O

Didnt bought it but thought to share it with you guys just in case anyone is interested.

A find like this needs pics!

And you picking up all the stones he has and selling them here on the forum without profit for all your community pals.
Just saying...

Review or it didnt happen!

20.00, above 20k, yeah, we need to see that....

Many would be interested...

P.S. I have a wet saw

Heck, at $19 I would have just bought it. That is worth a gamble. Even if it is huge for a razor you could always take it to be cut down and sell off the extra pieces, possibly completely recover. This is all assuming that it is actually good for razor use.

I would love to see pictures/review of this stone too. It sounds fascinating.

I know but Im just on a tight budget from the holiday season and there is no return policy in this store however, but I will definately take some pictures next time I step in. Please believe me when I say this that Im not lying and simply relaying what I saw, personally I havent tested how good the stone is but I have a very good reason to believe that he wasnt bluffing. The older asian gentlemen looks like one of those kung fu maestros from martial art movies. He appeared very composed and his eyes tell that he has seen it all and been there and done that. Apparently this store is there since 80 years and he has a huge collection of japanese kitchen knives, cleavers and asian cooking utensiles. There are so many different sharpening stones but they all come in packaging with standard english labeling except this one which comes in a plain plastic wrap. Unfortunately there is a language barrier and he was not able to speak in good english and it made it very difficult to understand and he had to communicate thru an asian customer and what I was told is that its very hard to determine its true grit size as per american standards as its a natural stone. What I could understand was that this stone is not like other japanese stones that are grounded in fine powder then made again but seems to be actually one solid stone. I dont know if this is a sedimentary rock, a limestone or claystone stone but it feels very fine on both ends and finer than any stone I ever used. The sides have ////// fine markings inside it and feel a bit coarse then the front and back. The stone stays almost white when its dry and becomes black when its wet. It doesnt appear that the stone cuts and becomes uneven fast when I ran my nail over it and wasnt powdery. He also showed me some of the knives that he has and boy they were sharper than anything I have ever seen!!!

Now I'm even more interested...Is he like the guy from the Gremlins movie...

Maybe he has Mogwai....

I'm curious and skeptical. I certainly wouldn't accuse anyone of lying, but I can't think of any natural stone that large that I have seen for sale at a retail location for that price.

Well I've learned that if something is too good to be true it usually is. OTOH, for twenty bucks ..... I would grab a lesser razor and slip it in a bag. Carry it down there and present it to the old gentlemen and ask if the stone is appropriate for the razor honing. If not which one would he recommend.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I'm curious and skeptical. I certainly wouldn't accuse anyone of lying, but I can't think of any natural stone that large that I have seen for sale at a retail location for that price.

I know and obviously 19 dollars is still a lot of money especially if you pay without knowing or reading about it thats why I backed off. But his store prices are actually cheap, I bought a 24 inch machete like knife for $3.50 and a black steel japanese knife called nakiri for $10 dollars and a steel knife called yanagi for $5.50 (both made in japan with indentation) . I also bought some ceramic bowls for 35 cents and a Ceramic kyocera type potato peeler for $4.50 lol.