fake coticule?

Is there any such thing as a fake coticule?

The coticule I received today is so regular, so homogeneous that it has me wondering. Either it's the kosherest kosher coticule or it's some sort of synthetic stone made to look like a coticule in color and with the tradiitional slate backing.

I'm at the office now so have yet to see if it makes a slurry and see how it hones.

It's also a touch darker in color than what I'm used to. More golden-mustard-colored than cream-colored.

I have my fingers crossed.

A picture would help :)

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Originally Posted by dylandog

Is there any such thing as a fake coticule?

The coticule I received today is so regular, so homogeneous that it has me wondering. Either it's the kosherest kosher coticule or it's some sort of synthetic stone made to look like a coticule in color and with the tradiitional slate backing.

I'm at the office now so have yet to see if it makes a slurry and see how it hones.

It's also a touch darker in color than what I'm used to. More golden-mustard-colored than cream-colored.

I have my fingers crossed.

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Dylandog - no photo's are required. It's clearly a worthless, worthless fake. Send it to me and I'll dispose of it for you, free of charge :tu

James.

Sorry, Bruno, I suppose photos would help...:)

Jimbo, just after I took these I packed up the stone and sent it your way. Enjoy!

That has got to be the most perfect shaped and finished stone I ever saw, especially for a coticule. This didn't come in a blue plastic box with "Norton" scratched off did it ? <g>.

Is it as dark as the photos indicate or just bad lighting?

Tony

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Originally Posted by Tony Miller

Is it as dark as the photos indicate or just bad lighting?

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Bad lighting. But it is pretty mustard-y like I said. The last of the four is more or less accurate.

Better yet, here are two outdoor photos.

Actually, now that I see it in real light, I'm beginning to think it's real. More custard than mustard and there's enough color variation across the surface that I couldn't really see in artificial light.

I wonder what you guys think though.

That sure looks like a beautiful Coticule to me. It isn't a natural, it looks like it's glued onto slate. What's the size?

It's 7 x 2, yes slate-bonded (yellow-only), not natural blue/yellow.

Unless of course it is a Norton! I don't think so anymore, though...

I guess I'll find out tonight.

That's a fake coticule if I ever saw one. I will take it off your hands for free just so you can be rid of the abomination. Brings bad luck on your house to have a fake coticule. :)

Regards,
EL

Very clever EL, very clever!!! dylandog, careful with EL, he can smell it and know if it's a Coticule or an Escher!!! :bow

Coticules vary from stone to stone. When I get a shipment of 20 kilos of belgians, I lay them all out together on a table under good light. I'm always amazed at how different they are one from the other and how different from those received in the past. The differences include color, shade, figure, and reflective differences. None of that affects the grading of the stone as I always buy Select grade stones which is the highest grade they sell. Looking at these stones under magnification is really eye-opening (so to speak). I recently purchased a video magnifier unit ($1,800 unit) - a monitor with a movable table and buttons for auto focusing, changing of light, background light, etc. and it's amazing what I see on ALL stones, not just the natural stones, and not just the coticules. The natural stones are natural products after all and they will have variation. Anyone who has bought diamonds knows how they vary! Same is true for other naturally grown products.

That the stone is mustard colored (would that be Guldens or Grey Poupon?) rather than custard colored (would that be flan or tapioca?) is irrelevant as to whether it's kosher or not. Kosher isn't dependent on the color of the stone at all!

Howard

I just looked at the pix. That is almost definitely not a fake coticule. In fact it looks new and I believe that was the one on ebay two weeks ago that went for about $30. The odd thing is the image of God in the center of the stone. Is anyone else seeing that?

Howard,

Doesn’t it look a lot like the stone that’s in the picture of a guy at Thiers Issard honing a new blade? They are supposedly antique stones from the depleted mine in the Adriennes. I think this is the picture:
http://www.classicshaving.com/i/Arti...s/NailTest.jpg

Do they look similar enough to you?

Regards,
EL

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Originally Posted by Howard

That the stone is mustard colored (would that be Guldens or Grey Poupon?) rather than custard colored (would that be flan or tapioca?) is irrelevant as to whether it's kosher or not. Kosher isn't dependent on the color of the stone at all!

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It would be Guldens.:D

Yes, Howard, I didn't mean to suggest kosher was a matter of color. The consistency was so regular, no 'grain' at all even looking at it up close, and the edges so perfectly beveled and so on, that I thought something was wrong. With my suspicions raised, I then started thinking about the color, and it started looking to me like one of those old Norton India stones.

I also once saw a "fake Escher" on ebay. It was in a similar box, with a knockoff picture of the barber shop scene and so on, and the text was very similar, but it was a synthetic stone if you looked carefully. Actually you can still see the listing here.

Anyway I'm reassured by the image of God on my coticule. If that don't make it kosher then what does.
:roflmao

dylandog, the hone that you referred to is not a fake Escher, it is a "Perfect" hone and very collectable. The seller wasn't trying to dupe anyone, he says that the hone is a synthetic stone in the description. The label is not a fake Escher label either, it is the label used on Perfect hones.

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Originally Posted by rgdominguez

dylandog, the hone that you referred to is not a fake Escher, it is a "Perfect" hone and very collectable. The seller wasn't trying to dupe anyone, he says that the hone is a synthetic stone in the description. The label is not a fake Escher label either, it is the label used on Perfect hones.

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You're absolutely right, Rich. I put "fake Escher" in quotes like that for a reason. I just meant that it seems Perfect Hones used that label because it resembled the famous Escher hones, kind of like how lots of sneakers have three stripes due to Adidas' fame. A knockoff isn't the same as a counterfeit, and many knockoffs are high quality, and become collectible in their own right.

Now maybe I'm wrong that Perfect's hones were knockoffs. But either way I certainly didn't mean the ebay seller was dishonest! He never even mentioned Eschers, and as you say he listed the stone as synthetic. I should have been more clear, but thanks for pointing it out Rich.

I've been away most of the last month, and am only now getting around to using this hone. I've just lapped it, and all I can say is this thing is hard. As in, Arkansas-stone levels of hard. Took me a good twenty minutes to lap it, and even a regular old slurry is slow in coming.

I even started to wonder again about the authenticity of the thing, but I looked at it under a microscope and the surface texture looks like my other coticule.

You coticule guys, how much variation do you see in hardness of individual stones, and do you notice any corresponding difference in the performance?

What did you lap it with?

320 grit sandpaper. It's just a very hard piece of rock.

It seems to be a very fine finisher though, and a fair amount faster than my other coticule. I finished two razors with it today and actually ended up with a wire-edge on one of them, a first for me with a coticule. And it's pretty hard to build a slurry on it; what slurry is there comes from the rubbing stone only. Very odd stone indeed.

I'm curious if anyone's ever seen a very hard coticule like this.

looks beautiful!!!!

I have no idea whether there is any such thing as a fake Coticule. However, when I recently visited the ardennes-coticule.be web site, they had posted a picture of several tons of "coticule" gravel they had dug from the mine trying to get to suitable strata for new hones. I wondered if they might be able to grind up those chips and compress it into a reconstituted hone, similar to a barber's hone.

Of course they can. They already do with other things. Ever see engineered quartz counter-tops.?

It may even be better than the natural piece, who knows? Of course it would need to contain epoxy or something else to bind it which would make it more synthetic than natural.