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Mystery Stone: Maruka Nakayama Kiita Nashiji
I finally bit the bullet and bought a Japanese natural stone in January. It was marketed as a Maruka Nakayama Kiita. It was purported to be an old stock from a Barber and friend of Iwasaki. It was locked with other stones, and reportedly "it is good old days very high quality Nakayama Maruka which is very hard to come by nowadays." He mentioned it was very smooth with fine particles, and honed well.
It was a steal for a Maruka and also of the legendary Kiita color, so I asked for help translating. With some hesitation I bought it. I am glad i did.
For those who might run into these types, I will add what I hope to be useful info. The upper kanji are the marks distinguishing the hone. In the upper left, the top three characters read Sho ( 正 ) Hon ( 本 ) Zan ( 山 ). This could be read differently, but I was assured Sho-Hon-Zan was the correct reading. This means "True mountain" according to Jim Rion's site, or "True Original Mountain" according to my japanese friend - but, she cautioned, "this doesn't mean anything, it is just the name of the mountain - like Main Street". This is a desirable mountain for hones, and it is the same mountain that contains the Nakayama mine. If this is a Kiita from that mountain, I was probably going to have a good quality hone. The bottom three kanji (剃 刀 砥) mean basically "Razor Hone". The first two (剃刀) mean kamisori, or razor, and the last (砥) I assume mean hone - she didn't know the exact english word for this, and thus couldn't translate. She instead looked at me blankly and made honing motions with her hands.
Many stones of varying character mined from this mountain, and some are fast, rough cutters, and some are very hard polishers. The "Razor Hone" kanji I assume meant that this stone was suitable for "Kamisori" or Razors. So this entire Kanji group reads "Razor Hone mined from the ShoHonZan mountain".
The lower leaf kanji are then marks of quality - two in fact. The two top right ( 極上 ) means "Premium", the lower three ( 一本撰 ) mean first or top quality.
I was told these stamps are the marks of testing - meaning the stone was tested and graded, and the stamps meant it passed those standards. As a side note, she mentioned that the language was unusual, and that they should have used hiragana in place of the lowest kanji. She took this to mean it was a marketing play "to make it cool". This does not mean it is not true, however, just that they used more of a marketing type lingo here.
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So I was left with some detective work when it arrived. There was no Maruka circle stamp, which means if it was a Maruka, the stamp on the sides wore off. It could also have been a stone that Maruka passed on to others to sell. When Maruka mined, he would only add his name to the finest stones and sell them for a premium. Those with some defect or another would be passed off to others to be sold by wholesalers. The stone also appeared to have been sawn in half, with a rough saw mark on one side. It is now the hand size you see many japanese barbers hone with. It could have been circle marked, but that side cut off to make two hones. I asked the vendor about this, and he wrote that it was a very reputable source, and that he thought it had been sawn in half with the other half, that had the mark on it, sold for much more money. No one knows for sure.
Also, it is not known if this stone was in fact mined from the Nakayama mine. It might have been, or it could have been mined from next door - though the same strata. The very knowledgable user alx posted good info here on the authenticity of Nakayama stones. This stone posses the SHoHonZan kanji, but the "kamisori hone" kanji is different than what he has linked to. Perhaps he can shed some light on this.
All that I was certain of is that this was in fact a Kiita Nashiji. These refer to the color. The Kiita refers to the yellow color, a much sought after stone for its cutting qualities. The Nashiji is an asian pear, which you might see in your local grocery store. It is quite delicious, but with stones the Nashiji refers to its specks. This supposedly causes it to have a faster cutting power, but that is debatable.
Next up was to use it and see the quality first hand. I'll post more on this process.