Thread: French Hones

another addition to make more confusion...this one is on the way to me, i am quite shure that this one is a purple one....
Interesting is that it also say like named on the Fox Hone "The Best (Hone) in the World" can be used with water and oil...
....haha and ist says "GERMAN MAKE"...size is like the most smal hones in wooden cases (E&Co. Celebrated German Water Hone, The Celebrated Water Razor Hone) 5 x 1inch

Hello french hones specialists!

My new stone!

Bought to a friend of mine who found it on an attic sale, with a strop and an old dovo! He doesn't like to hone his straight razors so he sold it to me!
I think it's a La Lune or a grey Vosgienne, what do you think??
I didn't lap it yet, we can see the size on one side 175mm by 40mm and next to it, nearly removed, a stamp!
Pictures:


The bottom:


Is the stamp visible for you( a rectangle)?



Thank you!

Could be a pierre la lune but its hard to make out this stamp...is it saying something like fine oder extra fine ? Or is it only this rectangle ?

The Structure of the Surface seems a bit rough, could you lap it and post another Pic in wet Condition and another Pic with slurry? The typical rouge Surface isnt visible, in this condition it seems more a grey slate (or novaculite) to me.

Helge for shure i will post some further pictures if this one arrives here...think 3-6 days....

Also there is another one on the way which looks like your thuringians with this special size and colour pattern, so there is more to come :-)

doorsch, your stone is known as Fox Hone, Goldfisch Wetzstein and Lorraine. It's different from the purple French stones in this thread.

Guillaume, grey French stones in that shape I've only seen labeled as Special Stone iirc. Nice size!

Thats what i thought...but interesting are the words..."German Make" if its a Lorraine this information would be wrong...but who knows :-)

Even if it was mined in Belgium it could have been cut to size and boxed in Germany.

About this type of whetstone are several stories that are sometimes contradictory, or what also occurs, based on fables. To find the right way will be a problem.
In the area of Vielsalm is a shale layer called Veine Lorraine or also Rouge du Salm. In English it is sometimes called Salm Rouge. This is actually a misnomer. The layer has an extremely reddish blue color. The Veine Lorraine is as far as we know the only BBW layer commercially exploited before 1980. Luckily I have been able to acquire some when Burton Rox had taken over the quarry from Burton in 1986. During a visit in 1988, I could buy several stones from the stock of the former company Burton.
The stone is reported now (2013) sporadically in the quarry by Ardennes Coticules.

I Wrote a assay about Belgian Whetstones. This comes on my site next week. 66 pg - 354 pictures

Originally Posted by guillaume

Hello french hones specialists!

My new stone!

Bought to a friend of mine who found it on an attic sale, with a strop and an old dovo! He doesn't like to hone his straight razors so he sold it to me!
I think it's a La Lune or a grey Vosgienne, what do you think??
I didn't lap it yet, we can see the size on one side 175mm by 40mm and next to it, nearly removed, a stamp!
Pictures:


The bottom:


Is the stamp visible for you( a rectangle)?



Thank you!

Looks quite like the one I have posted on side 1 of this thread. If the stones are not lapped they look quite rough. But the appearance as well as the saw marks on the side seem that you really have a special stone here. Does it have the metallic shinning when wet?

Also the rectangular stamps are typicall. Normally they say fine or very fine (Modine has posted some perfect examples here). But I also have two stones where you can only see the rectangular frame and the words have gone. Enjoy!