Water hone for penknives ect.

I ran across this beautiful stone at a antique store today. I would like if someone could positively identify it as a thuringian. This is the first hone I have ever HAD with a label saying 'made in Germany'
I am wanting to use it as a baseline when comparing to other flea market finds,



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...y/2897cb03.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...y/633ba819.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...y/d8393b6b.jpg

This is just a comparison to some of my other stones. None of which I have 100% identified.
The stone on the inside right, is on a paddle with a leather strop on the other side, it has German writing saying 'extra fine waterstone". The inside left is unmarked but just as fine as the other two. The outside left stone, could just be a slate stone. The slurry looks good but it's not very fine. Maybe 3000-4000 grit...

I don't know , but they are nice stones, thanks for sharing them.

I wouldn't have thought a Thuringian would do much for a penknife and the slurry is grey. Thuringian slurry is more white. There are other German hones such as the Hunsruck and Schwedenstein. I can't tell what the other hones are from the pictures.

Thank you for the info, that is exactly what I was wanting to know. The stone on the inside right, is on a paddle with a leather strop on the other side, it has German writing saying 'extra fine waterstone". The inside left is unmarked but just as fine as the other two. The outside left stone, could just be a slate stone. The slurry looks good but it's not very fine. Maybe 3000-4000 grit...

I will do some reading up on the stone types you listed.

IIRC Hunsruecker hones give brownish slurry. You may ask Tony Miller, he used to sell them.

The Well Shaved Gentleman The Heirloom Razor Strop Company

Hunsrücker are more recent I believe; Schwedenstein is more variegated and usually comes in very thin formats (like the one on the paddle). Mine have grey slurry.

The box looks a lot like this one.

On this Russian forum, there is a discussion on a Thuringian in a box similar to yours and a courser stone, which is presumed to be a Russian imitation.

Thankyou that is interesting reading. I love rocks. Recently I have had more fun collecting and researching hones than razors.

sidmind,

your hone is definetly a Thuringian hone. Thuringians were not only made as hones for razors, there also have been penknive and knive hones. This hone you have was mined and sold from a company located in Steinach, most possible C. Luthard F., who was the company that existed the longest among the Thuringian hone companies. The company closed in 1966.

The following image shows a comparable hone that is shown in the slate museum in Steinach.

Attachment 100130Attachment 100131

That is cool, are there more photos from the museum? google failed to find anything...

Are you certain they are Thuringian hones and not another variety of German hone, or a coarser type of Thuringian? The slurry is darker than that of my Thuringians, despite Thuringians being rather fine for a penknife.

Well, the photos were taken by myself with the permission of the museum during one of my visits there. I#m not really sure if I'm allowed to post them here because they are not official, so maybe I should better remove them.
But maybe some more information of the museum and thuringian stones in general is interessting for you.
The slate museum in Steinach deals with the slate mining industry in this area. Hones and sharpening stones are only a smaller part of this industry, mainly slate school tables and slate pencils were produced and this area is very famous for that.
But in this museum there is one smaller room only dealing with hone stones.
Here you can see all kinds of hones, sharpening stones, sharpening wheels/discs and so on made of thuringian slate. And you find some history of the companies that were mining and trading this stones.
One interesting thing may be, that you don't see any Escher labeled stone there - nor any information about the Escher company.
One reason for that is, that the history about thuringian stones is much more than the history of Escher company.

Sharpening stones were mined in this area from the 14. century on in nearly all qualities and for all thinkable usages. There were coarse stones for sharpening scythe blades and very fine stones for razor or instrument honing and so on. Sharpening stones of this area were found in an ancient celtic city not far away, that exists more than 2200 years ago.

J.G. Escher arrived at the scenery, when he settled to Sonneberg around 1750. He first worked as a painter and then began to trade with slate products of this area.

So Escher was mainly a trading company who had his own mines but also bought stones from other mining companies in this area. This mining "companies" were mostly one/two man companies who had the right to mine in a certain area. For example in the year 1840 there were about 24 mines with 50 workers in total in the area of Steinach. Escher company itself was located in Sonneberg (there had been some mines in Sonneberg too, but most of the mines -even the ones for the recent known thuringian waterstones- had been in the area of Steinach). Escher brought the stones mainly mined in the Steinach area to Sonneberg, where they were labelled and selled around the world.

So - just a very short overview of Thuringian hone stone history - keep in mind that not only Escher-labelled stones are good thuringian hones. In Germany most of the Thuringians you find are not labelled. Mostly the hones were used by Barbers and even if the stones had been labelled once, no one who daily work with this tool kept any attention to a label that was bond on the back.

Great information. Many thanks, hatzicho. Which is the Celtic city that you refer to?.

Please don't remove the photo, it is very good. if you have anymore please post them! we won't tell anyone we promise... :)

You said your description was the short version. please if you could give us the long version, it would be great to have as much info as we can..
Thank you for your time

Attachment 100137

I noticed this one says can be used for pen knife & razor.
supposedly this is a strop hone. is it?

@ scipio
I don’t think that there was a difference in quality between penknife and razor Thuringians. There was a coarser quality of sharpening stones mined in this area used for sharpening of scythes and sickles. The material of these stones is found as greywacke that has its origin in the lower Devonian age whereas the razor and penknife hones consist of serizit and clay slate of the Ordovizian and the upper Devonian age.

I think the difference in penknife and razor hones simply was the size of the hone. I don’t think that hones of a size of 6 inch by 1 inch or even smaller were intended to be used for razor honing.
For the special hone sidmind has posted of course I cannot say for sure that this is a Thuringian by the photos. But penknife hones were a well known and documented usage of Thuringians.
The slurry indeed looks a little bit yellow-brownish in the photos, which reminds me more of a frankonian stone. But also I have some Thuringians that produce a more yello/darker grey slurry. Depends on the colour and of which area/mine the stone comes from. But even if this is a frankonian stone. The frankonian area directly borders to Thuringia and these stones are even finer (used as an absolutely end finisher for razors) than thuringian stones. So the quality should not be less but might be even better.
By the way, I have not seen any frankonian that comes in one of these boxes.

@ AlanII
Celtic city might be a little bit misunderstanding according to the comprehension of city from today. Actually it was more like a big castle, comparable to what was known in the middle ages, but very large, with several thousand inhabitants at the high times.
From the literature is known, that the celts brougth whetstones from the area around Steinach to the Steinsburg in Hildburghausen.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hatzicho

@ AlanII
Celtic city might be a little bit misunderstanding according to the comprehension of city from today. Actually it was more like a big castle, comparable to what was known in the middle ages, but very large, with several thousand inhabitants at the high times.
From the literature is known, that the celts brougth whetstones from the area around Steinach to the Steinsburg in Hildburghausen.

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Yes, an oppidum (and a quick google takes me straight there), often called hill-fort in English. Thank you again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hatzicho

@ scipio
I don’t think that there was a difference in quality between penknife and razor Thuringians. There was a coarser quality of sharpening stones mined in this area used for sharpening of scythes and sickles. The material of these stones is found as greywacke that has its origin in the lower Devonian age whereas the razor and penknife hones consist of serizit and clay slate of the Ordovizian and the upper Devonian age.
.

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Many thanks for all that invaluable information, Hatzicho - it certainly clarifies matters re: thuringian hones!

RE: Greywacke, a small British hone of around 1" x 6" (25mm x 150mm) was sold as a razor hone, the label saying that it was glued to the hone itself - it was made from Greywacke, which is quite abundant in Wales. A fine variety is found in Charnwood Forest, near where the famous Charnley Forest hones come from. As you say, the German use for it seems to have been for scythestones, etc, as it can be quite gritty in character, being an immature sedimentary rock of very mixed constituents. The type used in the British hone is a very dark grey, almost black colour, and quite fine in character, with no very large particles. Of course, it is not in the same league as a good thuringian stone!

Regards,
Neil

[QUOTE=Neil Miller;985106]

RE: Greywacke, a small British hone of around 1" x 6" (25mm x 150mm) was sold as a razor hone, the label saying that it was glued to the hone itself - it was made from Greywacke, which is quite abundant in Wales. A fine variety is found in Charnwood Forest, near where the famous Charnley Forest hones come from. As you say, the German use for it seems to have been for scythestones, etc, as it can be quite gritty in character, being an immature sedimentary rock of very mixed constituents. The type used in the British hone is a very dark grey, almost black colour, and quite fine in character, with no very large particles. Of course, it is not in the same league as a good thuringian stone!


Thanks Neil for that info!

I have quite a lot of Thuringians calling my own, but up to now I have not found such a scythstone made of thuringian greywacke.

Literature says, they were greenish grey in colour, sandstone like and found between layers of clay slate. They consist of pieces of quartz and feldspar, chlorite and fericite with grain size between 80 to 150 µm. They were mainly mined in the area of Sonneberg.

Regards
hatzicho

Great info, I had my eye on one and now decided to buy it (relatively cheap, I guess) on a local auction site. It comes in a blue box with a different font but the exact same text on the outside and the same text and lay-out on the inside. It was advertised as roughly 11x3cm, I'll have to evaluate its properties when it arrives (I don't have any other Thuringian hone, so an evaluation as a finisher will have to do).

So thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pithor

Great info, I had my eye on one and now decided to buy it (relatively cheap, I guess) on a local auction site. It comes in a blue box with a different font but the exact same text on the outside and the same text and lay-out on the inside. It was advertised as roughly 11x3cm, I'll have to evaluate its properties when it arrives (I don't have any other Thuringian hone, so an evaluation as a finisher will have to do).

So thanks.

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Photos or it didn't happen!!!!!!!!!! :)

Okidoki then, these are the only two I have so far:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...erhone_001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...erhone_002.jpg

It even has the same grammar mistake/typo "Keep it free oil and grease". The picture seems a bit overexposed, so I expect it to be slightly darker in real life.

I would love to see the slurry on that, to see if it is brownish as mine is.

That's awesome. I hope you got a good deal, I probably paid too much for mine, $25.00
I didn't know my little post about pen hones would end up being so informative.!!

Great information on different hones and stones, thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pithor

"Keep it free, oil and grease".

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I can no longer imagine a world where the oil is free. They used to be 40 cents to the gallon.
I like this idea.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sidmind

I would love to see the slurry on that, to see if it is brownish as mine is.

That's awesome. I hope you got a good deal, I probably paid too much for mine, $25.00
I didn't know my little post about pen hones would end up being so informative.!!

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I paid a bit less (about $17) but if it turns out that it works great as a finisher, I think we both got a bargain. Bear in mind that vintage Thuringian hones of about the same size (5"x1") go for about $40 and up to about $120 from reputable vendors (I think, although prices seem to have dropped, and those are the ones marked with the Escher cup in a wooden box).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pithor

Okidoki then, these are the only two I have so far:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...erhone_001.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...erhone_002.jpg

It even has the same grammar mistake/typo "Keep it free oil and grease". The picture seems a bit overexposed, so I expect it to be slightly darker in real life.

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Finally found one of these Penknife hones were the grammar mistake was corrected. Unfortunately box isn't in good condition, but more important, hone is in good shape!

Attachment 140626

Interesting also how the little ornament in the middle of the label changed a little over the times.

Attachment 140627

I remember once seeing a similar box with hone on ebay.de that had the name Escher printed on it. Looks indeed like Escher bought hones from several sources and rebranded them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hatzicho

Finally found one of these Penknife hones were the grammar mistake was corrected. Unfortunately box isn't in good condition, but more important, hone is in good shape!

Attachment 140626

Interesting also how the little ornament in the middle of the label changed a little over the times.

Attachment 140627

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Do these Hones in generally have these i would call it "rough" signs of cutting on the four sides where the stone is lowered from the honing area? I received a "silver grit" hone last week, which seems to me to be a natural slate hone...and on these four lowered cut sides (which are mostly very fine on many hones, in this case it looks like the stone is a rougher material) but i think this is because of the cutting or grinding...

I think you mean the saw marks on the hone sides. They are typical to a certain extent for natural stones. For thuringian waterwhetstones, they appear sometimes, but also a lot of hones are lapped or even polished at the sides so that you don't see the saw marks any more. Depends on how carefully the hone was prepared by the seller. I think some times in the past when a lot of hones were sold, the preparation of the single hones was less careful.

An interesting issue is, that the soft thuringian waterwhetstones were handcut by the miners in the older days. Only in the larger trading and grinding companies the stones were cut by circular saws in the ending 19th/beginning 20th century. You can see the difference by looking at the saw marks. So you get an indication, how the stones have been cut and - with a little luck and experience you may guess, which company could have done this. But that's another story.

I did not mean the four sides of the hone, if you flatten a hone on the area you work often the sides are lowered (about 3mm). On this area it seems like the stone has a lower grit (other saw or working marks)...on these areas the stone has not been treated like it would be with fine sanding paper...

So the question for me is if these are kind of sawmarks or a kind of a grinding machine...?

That is the picture from the Silkstone...
http://up.picr.de/16097111qz.jpg

Here is one i received some weeks ago, this one is as many others without a reference to a specific company. But the instructions are nearly the same like they were shown on others.
Its a dual layered stone, i would recall it more a yellow-green then a light green...

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d92628_k_d.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...dd6a8a_k_d.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e51131_k_d.jpg

I actually know that there was no direct connection to Escher mentioned. But i personally believe there is some connection. On an Auction was a Severin Robert Droescher (S.R.D) Penknive Hone listed. As Droescher was Whole Trader for Escher during a period of time, it included a J.G. Escher & Sons Water Hone. The Instructions have been actually in the same print / look like these stones have been printed...