Help needed to identify hone

I'm new to the Straight Razor Place so this is my first post. I looking for help to identify a hone I recently purchased on ebay. It was advertised as a Thuringian, however I suspect this is incorrect as I don't think it has the right colour and is not soft enough. It came in a wooden paddle and is approx 150mm x 25mm and dark brown in colour. I have lapped it on one side and the colour of the slurry produced doing this was a choclate brown, initially I thought this was due to it been oil soaked however after lapping for a couple of hours the colour did not vary. The stone is very hard and fine to touch, and except for a few white blemishes and one orange spot is very consistant in it's colour. Any help from you very knowledgeable people would be gratefully received.

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Could be a brown Escher/Thuringian. Not having a ton of luck finding SOLID information but lots of speculative talk. See if this post helps???
http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...huringian.html

It doesn't look like my 2 purple labeled La Lune stones. The surface texture reminds me of Arkansas/Washita stones.

show us some pic with slurry. ark slurry is an off white unless the stone has alot of oil in it.

I don't have a stone that is hard enough to get this stone to slurry. I have tried my Chinese water stone, welsh slate and ceramic stones all have the same result, with the slurry all coming from the slurry stone and not from the brown stone. So I've used the same wet and dry paper I used to lap the stone. As you can see the slurry is chocolate brown colour. I don't think the stone has dirty oil on it as wiped it with a strong degreaser and nothing came off. In fact I don't think the stone is absorbing water or oil, every thing just wipes off the surface. Ill add the picture with slurry shortly. The stone seems to be heavy for its size so must be dense.

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To be honest from side striation on the stone I would not be too surprised if that was man made hone.

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Originally Posted by adrspach

To be honest from side striation on the stone I would not be too surprised if that was man made hone.

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BAH! I totally overlooked that and was too stuck on the cutting face. I think you might be right there! It's TOO uniform on the side, now that I look at it, to be a natural stone, unless it was a slate based stone? The 3 welsh stones I picked up don't 'look' natural either! The only way you can tell is by raising a slurry and smelling the rock or taking a really close look and seeing the subtle veins in the stone.

I'm a little torn here. I've also never seen a 'man made' hone with so many larger sized imperfections in it. All the man mades I've seen are way more uniform in color than that.

Have you ever seen man made Coti or Thuri? There is somewhere thread about it.

Its got the look and slurry of an extra thich barber hone. :shrug:

This thought had occurred to me as well but like brooksie967 I was puzzled by the imperfections in the stone.

When I saw first barber hone with so many imperfection I was puzzled too but since then I encountered few more.

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Originally Posted by pt2583

This thought had occurred to me as well but like brooksie967 I was puzzled by the imperfections in the stone.

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Describe what you mean by imperfections in this stone, please.

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Originally Posted by Hirlau

Describe what you mean by imperfections in this stone, please.

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I guess the proper term would be inclusion. There are white and orange inclusions throughout the stone. If I look at any of the synthetic stones by norton, naniwa, king, etc etc, they are all of uniform color throughout. I'm not sure why something, man made, designed to be of uniform characteristic for the purpose of cutting/polishing metal, would have such design.

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Originally Posted by brooksie967

I guess the proper term would be inclusion. There are white and orange inclusions throughout the stone. If I look at any of the synthetic stones by norton, naniwa, king, etc etc, they are all of uniform color throughout. I'm not sure why something, man made, designed to be of uniform characteristic for the purpose of cutting/polishing metal, would have such design.

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I think your theory is right, brooksie.
The problem is, I can't see the inclusions in the pictures. I guess I need new glasses.
I just looked again and easy dismissed the "few" specks that I did/do see as foreign particles from a box or container.
I do not see any inclusions in the slurry, which on my screen the slurry pictures are a little clearer.

Who knows for sure, not me, my guess is man-made.
BUT,,,,
If you see white & orange inclusions, then natural is a higher probability.

Thanks every one for your wise words. I've read the thread about brown Thuringians and picked up on name of another brown hone whih was mentioned. This the "Frankonian" hone which has similar characteristics i.e. brown, very hard and dense. I accept my stone may well be man made, but does anyone have any thoughts on the Frankonian as an alternative. If some one had some pictures of a Frankonian to post I could compare. Thanks again every one

Looking at the side I have to agree it's probably synthetic. Frankonians are new stones and are not even sold in that size.

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Originally Posted by pt2583

Thanks every one for your wise words. I've read the thread about brown Thuringians and picked up on name of another brown hone whih was mentioned. This the "Frankonian" hone which has similar characteristics i.e. brown, very hard and dense. I accept my stone may well be man made, but does anyone have any thoughts on the Frankonian as an alternative. If some one had some pictures of a Frankonian to post I could compare. Thanks again every one

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Just for people to know, it's the thuringian and franConian forest - not with a K.