Thread: Antique Store Find

Here is a hone and box I bought in an antique store for $15. Might it be the acclaimed Escher?? One edge has a hard glue like substance on it. It is a beautiful blue/green color. The box has a gap in it for a slurry stone but unfortunately is missing. Pics are before lapping. Please feel free to comment.

Thanks,

Jason

Smell it, feel it, listen to it, lap it, test it.

If it smells of oil, it's probably not a vintage Thuringian ("Escher" is simply one of the companies that labeled and sold vintage Thuringians). A vintage Thuringians will have a very faint, earthy, decidedly non-chemically smell.

Feel it: artificial hones often feel tacky or grabby – or alternately, glassy/ceramicky – to the touch. A vintage Thuringians will feel smooth like slate or marble (different from glass) on the honing surface. This is hard to describe, but a vintage thuringian will have a kind of dry 'lubricated' slide to it, almost like it's been dusted with an imperceptibly fine and invisible graphite powder. The sides meanwhile will often have saw marks and other irregularities. (Natural hones are cut, artificial hones are baked or molded.)

Lap it: vintage Thuringians are fairly soft, usually much softer than artificial hones. They'll lap fairly quickly, and yield a tell-tale milky slurry that's usually lighter in color than the hone itself.

'Listen' to it: build a little slurry and do a few strokes on it with an old ebay beater. Does it feel/sound quiet and velvety? Good. Or does it instead make a sort of glassy chink? Probably an artificial barber hone.

Test it. If it passes the first four tests above, do fifteen or twenty strokes on already shave-ready razor. If the razor shaves as well or better than before, you've got a Thuringian.

Comments on the pics:

1. The fact that the stone is about an inch shorter than the space in the box is a good sign. Looks like there may originally have been a slurry stone – which would indicate a Thuringian.

2. On the other hand, the first pic leaves me a little doubtful. The surface looks quite scratched and a bit glazed here and there (though this might be the lighting). Vintage thuringians in my experience don't glaze, and they don't retain such an intricate record of their use in the form of scratch marks. (I believe this is because of their relative softness; when you make a slurry, this tends to 'erase' scratch marks or at least make them quite faint. I suppose if you consistently used an escher dry and without slurry, it might develop a cobweb of scratch marks. In my experience though, only very hard hones – including artificial barber hones, the Chinese natural, and others – develop this.)

Another note. It is possible for a hone like this to pass all the tests of my previous post and not be a Thuringian but rather something similar, like say a Water of Ayr stone. The Water of Ayr smells, feels, sounds, and performs quite like an Escher. But it looks a little different. It's very hard to describe how it looks different, and the differences might not show up well in a photo. If you've held a WOA in your hand you know how it looks different, but it's hard to describe. WOAs are very rare, however, and they're usually labeled; and when they come in a box, it's either a cardboard box or a Mauchline wood box, not the kind in your picture; so altogether I think it's unlikely it's a WOA.

This sucks. Stone smells oily and is definately glazed. Upon trying to lap, it simply will not. I spent over one futile hour trying. The stone seems to repel water and destroy the sandpaper. This thing is hard. The four corners of one side are almost like a fine granite appearance but it will NOT lap further than that. Losing faith......and patience......

Sorry to hear it Jason. From what you're saying, that sure isn't a Thuringian.

Instead of despairing however I'd suggest you grit your teeth and finish lapping it and chamfering the edges. Artificial hones come in a huge variety of grits and speeds; you might have yourself a nice fast bevel-setter there.

If it repels water it is likely that it was used with oil in the past. Howard of the Perfect Edge posted that oven cleaner is a good thing to remove oil from a stone here . You might try it before you go any further. Best of luck with it. I hope it is a Thuringan.

Thanks Jimmy. I hope so too. I have a thuringian from DMT and this seems completely different. Even so I've spent way more than $15 on mistakes in the past year.

I appreciate the replies!!!

For what it's worth a few of my remarks:

First, I think the fact it seems glazed and was used with oil doesn't necessarily contravene the possibility of a vintage Thuringian. I've seen T's that were like that. In the early days Eschers were sold with instructions to use it with oil (even though later on, this was explicitly discouraged).

Presence of a hard glaze like smear skin impairs honing: the thing either just slides over the abrasive without much effect due to the water repellent qualities of the grime, or a thin layer of the smudge will be sanded off, immediately smearing and sealing the abrasive particles hindering further action. Soaking such a stone overnight in warm water with some enzyme enhanced hand wash powder and subsequent good brushing usually removes the dirt.

The presence of scratch marks on the honing surface do, in my opinion, not say much: a lot of hones I've seen were maltreated by unwitting previous owners in all possible manner. More than the qualities of hones, they indicate those of owners.

Fourth, the idea of a missing rubbing stone is tempting, but I'm not convinced. The smaller T's were not generally, I believe, sold with them. Also, in this size the length/breadth ratio doesn't seem right. A ratio conform the inner box dimensions is more common. In the picture, one end seems rougher, and Jason writes "one edge has a hard glue like substance on it". I suggest the box was made for a larger stone, it fell, a piece broke off, was glued on again, which was obviously no good, and the piece has since been lost.

Then the box itself: it isn't original, I venture. The original wood boxes I've seen were either fairly simple small composite glued boxes, or large elaborate very well made cases. This one is neither: it is made from one piece, but has two very dissimilar hinges. Their shapes and thus that of the inlays exclude the possibility of there formerly having been two identical ones. Also, the stone hole is placed far out of center without apparent need, has rough unfinished sides, and the box could (so would on a commercial basis) have been smaller. To me, it seems a previous owner decided to take extra good care of a valued hone and home made a case for it. Maybe, but this is taking guesses a bit far, the box was made after the supposed breaking and glueing to prevent repetition.

Finally the stone: it does look like a Thuringian to me. It could very well be one of various alternatives, but I read nor saw anything that in my opinion conclusively contradicts the T-hypothesis. Further cleaning, lapping and testing remains the best way to tell.



Concluding: I can't judge your wallet, but for $15 this would certainly not seem a disapointment. Even if it does turn out to be a worthless square pebble, the questions it poses and the fun trying to answer them could be thought worth the while. And that's the worst case scenario, I think chances are this turns out a nice Thuringian, with a bonus of its aberrant personal history.

Thanks for your input and time. I will keep trying to get it clean.

Originally Posted by jjpharris

Here is a hone and box I bought in an antique store for $15. Might it be the acclaimed Escher?? One edge has a hard glue like substance on it. It is a beautiful blue/green color. The box has a gap in it for a slurry stone but unfortunately is missing. Pics are before lapping. Please feel free to comment.

Thanks,

Jason

Looks alot like my stone I just got from my grandfathers esstate. I havent done the ezoff yet but your discription of the finish and flattening "fun" sounds alot like min