Is this the same stone as a Salmen Yellow lake? i just got one of the Salmen and its almost black!
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Yes, the yellow lake stones from salmens is from the same quarry as the purple yellow lake. I'm not sure if salmens mined stone from more than one quarries in that area, and named them all yellow lake like the next company that took the quarry, but most of the yellow lake stones are from the same mine. They say it's a little finer, but I haven't test a salmens one. What about the surry, what color is it? When we say purple, it's not the BBW purple. Much darker.
I'm not at all sure that the non-purple stones came from the same quarry. I have had two of them and they seemed finer to me than the purple ones, with a very different feel to them. I remember Ardsprach posting about the Dragons Tongue hone - they guy at the quarry (Inigo Jones quarry) said they used to cut stone for A. B. Salmen. I suspect that the change of stone had something to do with Salmen losing control of the quarry or just using the 'Yellow Lake' as an umbrella brand - the original blue box simply says 'Original Yellow Lake Brand' so you take that to mean a variety of things.
That they used stones from other quarries is known - see the advertisements below - and they also imported: I had a combination coticule/bbw with their logo on the side of it once (salmon + hook). Unfortunately they aren't about anymore - the company was taken over in 1926 by one calling itself 'Successors to A. B. Salmen) but they stopped filing returns in 1989.
Attachment 86641
This one shows an Aldgate address, the succesors had a Highgate address. The next one (earlier - 1890s) shows a Houndsditch address:
Attachment 86642
It is interesting to note the reference in the earlier advert - it says that A. B. Salmen was successor to S. Samuel - looks like a long line of 'successor to' in that line of work!
Regards,
Neil
Neil if you have one of the purple YLs with original label or box can you show them here please?
Here a pic of the stone i purchase same box and allAttachment 86647
I believe that one is not puple size is 8x2x0.5" normaly quite fine.
I no longer have the hone, but here are some pics of it:
Attachment 86650Attachment 86651Attachment 86652Attachment 86653Attachment 86654Attachment 86655
From what I remember it was not in the same league as the dark ones - more around 8 or 9k, possibly more with some finesse and/or oil.
Regards,
Neil
This might be of interest too - the list of holdings attributed to A B Salmen (Albert Berl Salmen, son of Samuel Salmen who was a founder of the Stepney Jewish School in London):-
Attachment 86656
I expect that you are already familiar with the quarries, but the dates might be of some interest.
Albert died in 1907. In 1910 a crown advertisement appeared to sell off the firms holdings, lock stock and barrel.
Regards,
Neil