Check out My free Stones!! WTH are they?!?

YouTube - myStones
hope that can help in identification.
they are fine like smooth leather almost. there not as harsh as a ladies nail file.
the small one is smooth as glass on its finest side.'
the tool marks look wild, but there not indented at all, guy wasnt gouging, the story is he was a watchmaker and these were for his tiny watch tools
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2470/...3d6d91b986.jpg
the little one is baseball card sized, double sided, the big one is 8X2X1
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3314/...9d0a4bbeb5.jpg
there both smooth and flat no cracks or nothin
1the color of the big one is sort of flesh colored, with kinda pink grain in it
2the small one is totally white on one side, and kinda gray/tan/white on the other slightly rougher side

anyone know if these are cheap or expensive? good/no good? what kind of stone are they?
id like to tell my buddy what there worth so he can keep his eye out for em.
im tickled pink:)

looks kinda like novaculite to me..(arkansas whetstone)...
ive got some borderline acceptable edges off that stuff when i first started honing afew years ago, but took about a week to do what a coticule could do in 10 minutes. those things move metal reaaallllyy slooowwww !!
im a grocery store meatcutter and just use my arkansas stones now to polish butcher and boning knives . better suited for kitchen work. ...quite pretty though,..and not too expensive either...
or, on the other hand...
maybe those'll work out fantastic for you..??...i seem to recall a couple of cats on here exclusively using novaculite and being quite happy with the results.

the big one?

both actually...they come in white, pink, grey, dark grey, shiny black, transluscent pink....you name it

ahhh ok, no wonder this hone thing seems so tricky and confusing, everything can look the same and different

is there a way to determine the different grits?
yea there definitly not for putting a new edge on, there all really smooth, say from smooth as leather to smooth as glass.
but might be good for touchups or for somewhere in between.

Beautiful! Funny they come up so often!
There is no actual grit to them. its all the same stuff, just at different density. Compare to grit sized hones they are in the higher range.
Maybe like the C12k.

check this out...

Stone Grades 101

ahhh great link, thanks!

Yep - Arkansas stones. Whatcha' have there looks like a combination soft/hard stone, and another soft ("wah-shee-ta") a stone. They're a good size; maybe $50 for the combo & $30 for the single.

I use a hard Arkansas stone as my finishing stone. It gives me a good shaveable edge. I hear that those fancy-pants higher grit synthetic stones give an even better edge - that's be almost too good to bear! :D

Enjoy,
Jeff

The small combo stone... the white side looks to be ceramic, like the Spyderco ceramic hones. The other side looks to be a softer natural stone, some kind of Arkansas stone.

The large stone is either an Arkansas stone or a Turkey oil stone.
None of them are a finishing grade hone.

Just my $.02,:)

yea i figured they might be hard to pindown without seeing them yourself.
thanks for the info guys, my buddy makes his living going to auctions and estate sales and buying to sell.
hes also got a few old gillette double sided razors in good shape, hes gonna dig em out for me. a couple of em are the whole set, with extra razors in a little leather box.

That looks just like one of my free stones! Old tool aficionado Beenpickin was so generous as to offer me a few of his hones, and this Soft Arkansas was one of them:

Attachment 25595

Attachment 25596

I haven't used it yet, but it's on my desk to been looked at daily. Don't you agree it is gorgeous? Beenpickin, thanks a lot again!