Originally Posted by
mainaman
In all my experience with stones from all popular vendors in many price ranges, huge $$ does not translate to better quality necessarily.
The big $$ price tags come from bigger size, perfect rectangular shapes, color ,how clean the stone is, and of course hype of certain mines.
A great razor tested stone can be had from the right vendor for a great price. So my advice to the OP is to ask all vendors about their stone recommendations, and do not believe any hype about mines and colors and so on, that is just to raise the prices. Just look for performance.