Thread: thuringian question

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know if there are any more active thuringian quarries these days that provide hones? Just found out the region is close to my in-laws and might make a nice trip/quest on the next visit to the family.

Thanks,

IIRC there are no mines that produce the quality of vintage Thuringian/Escher.

Six or seven years back Muller Thuringans were distributed through Tony Miller. I had one and it wasn't bad. Russell Baldridge did a review of one that was quite good. They were 6x2 in a card stock box with a slurry stone @ about $50-60 USD.

Trouble was that while many were good, many had hard inclusions making them unusable for razors, and Tony discontinued distributing them. Whether Muller is still a viable enterprise is unknown to me.

If you send a PM to Peter ( hatzicho ) he could probably tell you who, what and where. He is over there and is quite knowledgeable as to the genre.

AFAIK no producing quarries. Thuringian hones were a byproduct of slate quarries in the Sonneberg area in Thuringen.

There is a rockhound in Germany that finds quality hones from time to time. When you see them in the classifieds you should grab one. You could PM him too http://straightrazorpalace.com/members/hatzicho.html

Thanks for the replies. Is it naive for me to think that I might have a better chance of stumbling on a vintage Thuringian hone in visiting Sonneberg than I would in the states or were these stones well dispersed all over the world many years ago?

Originally Posted by trifle

Thanks for the replies. Is it naive for me to think that I might have a better chance of stumbling on a vintage Thuringian hone in visiting Sonneberg than I would in the states or were these stones well dispersed all over the world many years ago?

They were but you never know what you're going to find if you look. An old buddy of mine used to say "If you don't shake the tree, you don't get any fruit."

I would think it very likely that a higher than average number of households in the area would have locally mined hones.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

They were but you never know what you're going to find if you look. An old buddy of mine used to say "If you don't shake the tree, you don't get any fruit."

That's what Sir Isaac Newton used to say.

Originally Posted by trifle

Thanks for the replies. Is it naive for me to think that I might have a better chance of stumbling on a vintage Thuringian hone in visiting Sonneberg than I would in the states or were these stones well dispersed all over the world many years ago?

Well that's what I did maybe 5 years ago.
I went in every shop in Sonneberg and the small towns around, knocked on a lot of doors and took out adds on the local newspapers. And I think a lot of other german and also some european thuringian lovers did that too. So you must be very lucky to find a door where nobody has asked. But it is possible of course and always some new-old "stocks" were found by childs or grandchilds or estate sale companies.

The last thuringian whetstone maker stopped mining in 1966. Since that time the old quarries were left open and up to today nature has retrieved the old places.