Thread: History of the "Magog Oilstone"

Ive been somewhat very intrigue about this stone for a while, the main reason is i grew up in the region where the novaculite quarry
was way back when. The stones come from Lake Memphremagog, from an island on the lake, as a teen i did spend a lot of time on that lake a family friend had a camp where i would go often during the summers, we did boating water sking etc, i remember going by that island many times by boat. I was a downhill skier as well and you can see the lake from Sugar loaf VT, an Owl's Head, its an incredible view from way up in the mountains.
All the article posted are from very old Vermont magazines and old book early in the 1800's.

There is definately a relation with the Magog and razors for sure.

Roman Fyler started adding these stone to his business of selling shaving boxes in the early 1800's the stone has been compare to Turkey oilstone and Charnley forest.



There quite a bit of info on this stone, but to my knowledge no marked stone has been found, or one of Mr Fyler shaving boxes with the Magog stone.
Please share any information you have about this stone im definately interested, but dont reply telling me you saw on ebay and the seller told you it was a Magog without provenance.

Some more information about the Magog Oilstone.


I guess the British didnt feel they needed a rival in the stone industries and stop the quarry!

Wow that's really cool! Thanks for posting it!

With today's synthetics, I doubt that that quarry will ever be re-opened, but I sure would like to have one!

Wow! So I thought I would look at some land prices out there - short of 1.5 Million... forget about it! Wow.

Very interesting. I would sure like to have one of those.
Once, washita stones were found to also be superior to the Turkish oilstones and much more expensive, and Charnleys were thought to be inferior compared to the competition and really cheap. From what I understand from those books, a "good" stone was good because of its speed. And, even hard Arkansas were once sold as razor stones.
If you found it, it will definitely worth it, but I don't think it will be the miraculous razor hone.

Originally Posted by Vasilis

Very interesting. I would sure like to have one of those.
Once, washita stones were found to also be superior to the Turkish oilstones and much more expensive, and Charnleys were thought to be inferior compared to the competition and really cheap. From what I understand from those books, a "good" stone was good because of its speed. And, even hard Arkansas were once sold as razor stones.
If you found it, it will definitely worth it, but I don't think it will be the miraculous razor hone.

I don't think a miraculous razor hone exists! There are some dudes who are miraculous with a hone though... some of them even post on this site .

Great reading. Thank you for sharing it.

Originally Posted by Vasilis

Very interesting. I would sure like to have one of those.
Once, washita stones were found to also be superior to the Turkish oilstones and much more expensive, and Charnleys were thought to be inferior compared to the competition and really cheap. From what I understand from those books, a "good" stone was good because of its speed. And, even hard Arkansas were once sold as razor stones.
If you found it, it will definitely worth it, but I don't think it will be the miraculous razor hone.

My objective is not to find "The miraculous razor hone" at all, its more about making people aware about the stone, and its origin and history.
Perhaps maybe somebody will have more info on it or even find a marked stone!

I bet if we could quarry a bit, there would be buyers.

Originally Posted by earcutter

I bet if we could quarry a bit, there would be buyers.

Have you ever made a hone from scratch?