Sharpening a frowning edge on a narrow stone isn't difficult. Sharpening a frowning edge on a wide stone (like a Norton bench stone), is not straightforward.
I think the frowns developed because people were using narrow hones.
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usually result not using flat hones.
With a barber hone, it's easy to "accidentally" take more metal off the center of the blade, than off the ends. The razor shaves OK, and the barber keeps honing it unevenly until a real frown develops.
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i have no idea what are you trying to say in above statement? why barber hones are any different from rest of the similar wide size stones?
And then he says "Uh-oh, I need a new razor", and the frowning blade goes in his "old razor" drawer, and 50 years later one of us buys it on eBay!
. . . Charles
PS -- at least, it _could_ have happened like that!<g>