Thread: For Better or For Worse, a Psychological Honing Experiment

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

Back in the day, shaving others with a straight or honing straights might have been someone's full time job - I'd assume that person would be pretty good at it. Back in the day, there would have been a good chance (I think) that those who honed learned how to hone directly from others - I think it's easier to learn in person than over the internet. "Vintage" natruals seem, for the most part, to be better than their "new" brothers and sisters. We also talk about how, often, the old ways of doing and making things were better; why should honing be an exception?

Consider also, the size of barber hones suggests to me barbers carried them around all the time to touch up dull razors. How often do you touch up yours?

Just noticed (yup, still thinking about this question) that your two points both point towards the same bias.
Also, there is no "I'm not sure option," which is how I would vote.

Back to the Vintage hone thing. Why are Vintage better? Coticule for instance. They came from the same quarry. Why are they better than the newer ones mined today. Are the hones today somehow inferior to their Vintage cousins. Just because Vintage is still around doesn't mean it's better. Will the hones I have today in my collection, The natural hones be considered better in 100 years. As I said, When hones are half a billion years old, I don't see what difference 100 years makes. It's the stone itself, I doubt it has anything to do with the age. Were there bad stones 100 years ago, probably...maybe as you said earlier, they only kept the good ones. Same holds true today.

What about Shapton. They make a pretty good hone....I realize it's not natural, but I'd love to see a test with a Vintage stone compared to a newer minded hone today, a good one. I still think, IMHO it's semantics.

Food for thought:

Here's an interesting point. Ardennes recently opened a mine that has been shut since the 1960's. So, the stones that came out of there in the 60's would be considered vintage today. They've extracted more Coticule from that mine recently. I have some. Does that make the stones I have Vintage? Are the ones that came out in the 60's somehow better than the one's they extracted today?