Japanese woodworker natural stone sale - today only

I have no idea how good their natural stones are (anyone know?), they claim these are the highest grade but the discounts (50%) from their standard prices are impressive.

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June 20, choose from our Okudo Tomae, Suita or Asia Natural Sharpening Stones – Only $199

Sharpening stone material has been mined in Japan for nearly 2,000 years. About 1,200 years ago, the best deposits were discovered in the mountainous Narutaki District north of present day Kyoto. All of the natural stones sold by the Japan Woodworker have been selected following a centuries old grading method. Particular care is taken to ensure that we obtain stones of a more uniform size and quality than those generally available in Japan.

Okudo is a semi-active (Higashi Mono) Kyoto whetstone mine that is best known for the most highly coveted Suita in Japan. Higashi Mono means eastern mines of Kyoto. Suita identifies the Strata that the stone comes from. Nest Plate is the stratum that the stones come from. There are several different stratum.

Today's 1-Day Deal is your choice of Suita, Tomae or Aisa Sharpening Stones:
The Suita being medium hard and easy to use on most steels.
The Tomae stone is a medium hard stone, that has exceptional properties for final honing of kitchen knives and chisels.
The Aisa stone is a hard stone, that has exceptional properties for final honing of kitchen knives and chisels and hard enough for razors.

Most of these stones have Su – small holes or pockets created by escaping gas when stones are forming in the earth's crust. These are not are not imperfections, as they do not interfere with the honing process. All of these stones are considered Finishing Stones.
This is a exclusive offer, and supplies are extremely limited. Order before the end of the day (EST) June 20, 2017 before they're all gone!

Hi well the stones look good. but they sell koppas.. actually defective stones with broken edges .
"All of these stones will be a minimum of 65mm wide and 100mm long"

well they look very good but for me thats b-rate studd that is sold for a whopping 200!!!!! bucks! i would never go beyound fullsize or at least 180x60 (an thats a koppa for me)

Soo well nice mini stones for a lot of money!
If i pay 200 bucks than i expect a fullsize 205x70mm at least..

the beige/orange Color is cool.,. this means that those are softer polishers mostly.. i got around 3-4 of those colored stones in the last month.. but those are of course fullsize.
well if you want to start with a nice small stone into the world of jnats than its ok.. but if i dondt even know the size or what exact stone i get .. its .. 200 bucks gone that might have been spend for a real stone. a reeeeeaaaalllyy gib one.

soo all that description gibberish sounds fancy like a hipster single speed starbucks kickstarter text.. if you had tried at least 50 of those yourself its just blabla.
Seeya.. and go for color and Fullsize! just a "hey you get a random mystery stone for 200 bucks" is beyond thrust.

So, stones w broken edges are called koppas and are defective? Or they are simply worth much less than a completely rectangular stone and the defects are the air bubble pits, lines, and inclusions?
Asking b/c I'm new and on JNS site saw so many stones missing corners that I thought it might have some sort of purpose. Even severely not cheap stones:
http://www.japanesenaturalstones.com/nakayama-maruichi-kamisori-kan-asagi-lv-5-a1057/
There was another right beside it, same price, same lopped corner, same name up until "kan".

They are just irregular stones. It is a natural product so you can't expect uniform. And the mining process isn't exactly precise.

Therefore we pay a premium for the "uniform" rectangular pieces. It you buy from reputable sources (JNS, Watanabe etc) you can be reasonably confident you are getting a quality piece

Understood. Thanks.😊

I wouldn't say air bubbles are defects. I'm not sure if you means 'su' that you find in suitas. Suitas are some of the most prized of the stones, especially for knife sharpening.

Japanese are perfectionist so anything that is not perfect is consider inferior. sometimes, these minor defects makes them affordable as perfect grade stuff goes for crazy amounts of money.

one thing to remember when it comes to stones is to 'ignore the stamps' and sometimes not perfect 210 x 70 size cause you may be surprise that it's the quality of the stone, not the size or shape that is the most important thing.

Yes, quality is paramount. As far as not being a perfect rectangle, when I saw that on so many expensive stones, I truly thought it had a meaning- perhaps because the break looked so clean. I got confused by the reference to "broken edges" above. Would those be not clean breaks? Re: stamps, I'm clueless so no danger of me relying on them😄
Maggie

MaggieG said:

Yes, quality is paramount. As far as not being a perfect rectangle, when I saw that on so many expensive stones, I truly thought it had a meaning- perhaps because the break looked so clean. I got confused by the reference to "broken edges" above. Would those be not clean breaks? Re: stamps, I'm clueless so no danger of me relying on them��
Maggie

Click to expand...

You mean koppas?

I mean these are cut from a stone face of a cliff/mine so irregular shapes do happen (I would assume all breaks to be clean unless there are hairline fracture in the stone that can create issues later on like splitting)

because these are not perfect size, you make adjustments to the movement/stroke when you are sharpening... not the end of the world... just something you need to be aware of that's all

but the other thing to note is that because the koppas are so small 100 x 60mm, they can even possible be scrap stone was the by product of cutting bigger stones . to me personally 100x 65mm is tiny for kitchen knives.. maybe pocket knife is ok

I ordered some and sent them back (they have a 30 day no questions asked return policy), way too small, and not uniformly rectangular even at the small size