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Picked this suita up recently. Perhaps not the most striking on first glance, but there is a lot going on with this stone. Some aka renge, some kuro renge (very tiny kuro flecks all over like goma), some gorgeous olive-gold kawa, and some wild turquoise inclusions on the end corners. The seller said it's Ohira, but...you know *shrug*.

I impulse-bought it because it's so unique but it's a little excessive for me (~1.1kg) and I have some smaller palm suitas I like more that do the same job for me. If anyone is interested, feel free to DM me, I don't have enough posts to list it in the BST yet.
 

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Rameka said:
Picked this suita up recently. Perhaps not the most striking on first glance, but there is a lot going on with this stone. Some aka renge, some kuro renge (very tiny kuro flecks all over like goma), some gorgeous olive-gold kawa, and some wild turquoise inclusions on the end corners. The seller said it's Ohira, but...you know *shrug*.

I impulse-bought it because it's so unique but it's a little excessive for me (~1.1kg) and I have some smaller palm suitas I like more that do the same job for me. If anyone is interested, feel free to DM me, I don't have enough posts to list it in the BST yet.
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that's a good looking stone. these can range from awful to incredible. that looks a lot like my hatahanka stamped on, which is a real performer. good hardness and very fast.
 
Rameka said:
Picked this suita up recently. Perhaps not the most striking on first glance, but there is a lot going on with this stone. Some aka renge, some kuro renge (very tiny kuro flecks all over like goma), some gorgeous olive-gold kawa, and some wild turquoise inclusions on the end corners. The seller said it's Ohira, but...you know *shrug*.

I impulse-bought it because it's so unique but it's a little excessive for me (~1.1kg) and I have some smaller palm suitas I like more that do the same job for me. If anyone is interested, feel free to DM me, I don't have enough posts to list it in the BST yet.
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I just bought a stone from Japan from an auction site. It was labeled an old barbers stone, so far I really like it.

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It has little black dots on the surface, kind of that pear skin look they call "Nashiji", but it's hard to tell from the photo. I'm not sure if it's a Kiita stone or not, but it's on the harder side, probably between level 4.5-5.0. All I know about kiita stones is that it translates to "yellow plate", after that I'm completely ignorant in regards to their specific qualities.
 
Grayswandir said:
I just bought a stone from Japan from an auction site. It was labeled an old barbers stone, so far I really like it.
It has little black dots on the surface, kind of that pear skin look they call "Nashiji", but it's hard to tell from the photo. I'm not sure if it's a Kiita stone or not, but it's on the harder side, probably between level 4.5-5.0. All I know about kiita stones is that it translates to "yellow plate", after that I'm completely ignorant in regards to their specific qualities.
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Cool stone, you should post some more pics of it. The black dots are called goma, nashiji are more of a thicker brownish dot. The "kiita" layer is a "tomae" layer with a yellow/orange coloration, not to be confused with a pale or beige "asagi" tomae which could look similar at first glance.
 
musicman980 said:
Cool stone, you should post some more pics of it. The black dots are called goma, nashiji are more of a thicker brownish dot. The "kiita" layer is a "tomae" layer with a yellow/orange coloration, not to be confused with a pale or beige "asagi" tomae which could look similar at first glance.
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Thank you, I think I lucked out, I paid around $75 after shipping and taxes, not too bad. I've been looking around and similar stones seem to be going anywhere between $150-$250 dollars, depending on the mine they came from. I really wish I knew where the stone came from, but in the end it's all about how the stone performs, and it performs really well. In my head it's a Nakayama, in reality I have no idea! 😁

There is some carving on the bottom of the stone that looks like Kanji to me (two symbols), so maybe that will reveal some information where the stone comes from?

I thought goma were supposed to be like black sesame seeds? I'll have to do a little photo shoot of the stone. I'll post a close up of the dots for you, they're very small. I still need to seal the bottom of the stone. I'm just going to use some finger nail polish, as I don't have the cash for cashew lacquer. It seems to work well enough on my nagura stones, and I already applied some to the sides of the stone. It's not as pretty as the cashew lacquer, but it gets the job done.
 
Grayswandir said:
I just bought a stone from Japan from an auction site. It was labeled an old barbers stone, so far I really like it.
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There are a few J-auction sellers who liquidate "old barber hones", I've picked up a few. Sometimes they're garbage but sometimes they turn out to be gems like yours. They all tend to be bench dimensions but on the smaller side for weight, which I love.
Here's a fairly fine/hard one I picked up a while ago, think it might be a red Ohira. It was a bit greasy when I got it, so I think one of the previous owners must have used it as an oilstone at one point. After a long IPA soak it now accepts a top-layer of water without beading, though it is not very thirsty. Neat colors on this one.
 

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Rameka said:
There are a few J-auction sellers who liquidate "old barber hones", I've picked up a few. Sometimes they're garbage but sometimes they turn out to be gems like yours. They all tend to be bench dimensions but on the smaller side for weight, which I love.
Here's a fairly fine/hard one I picked up a while ago, think it might be a red Ohira. It was a bit greasy when I got it, so I think one of the previous owners must have used it as an oilstone at one point. After a long IPA soak it now accepts a top-layer of water without beading, though it is not very thirsty. Neat colors on this one.
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That's a really nice looking stone! It's interesting how the strata run horizontal, I don't think I've seen that before, or never noticed if I did. There are a lot of bench sized stones being auctioned, but I was attracted to the smaller koppa stones. The one I have is around 526g. and fits in the hand really well. I do need to pick up a larger stone at some point, the extra real estate can be pretty useful.

How much did you pay for your stone, and what auction site did you use?
 
Grayswandir said:
That's a really nice looking stone! It's interesting how the strata run horizontal, I don't think I've seen that before, or never noticed if I did. There are a lot of bench sized stones being auctioned, but I was attracted to the smaller koppa stones. The one I have is around 526g. and fits in the hand really well. I do need to pick up a larger stone at some point, the extra real estate can be pretty useful.

How much did you pay for your stone, and what auction site did you use?
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Yeah, I haven't seen too many with the horizontal striations either. I'm a sucker for a unique stone.
I think that one was from the Yahoo JP auction listings. I can't recall what I paid off the top of my head, but I've gotten some good deals on there. Might have gotten that one in a bulk sale.
 
Rameka said:
Yeah, I haven't seen too many with the horizontal striations either. I'm a sucker for a unique stone.
I think that one was from the Yahoo JP auction listings. I can't recall what I paid off the top of my head, but I've gotten some good deals on there. Might have gotten that one in a bulk sale.
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I use Buyee, which is a proxy bidding service for Yahoo. Don't pay for order consolidation if you by from multiple sellers. It winds up being more expensive when it's supposed to cut shipping costs. I'm still upset about that, no one likes to get scammed. It looks like a very nice stone, did you lap it yourself?
 
Grayswandir said:
I use Buyee, which is a proxy bidding service for Yahoo. Don't pay for order consolidation if you by from multiple sellers. It winds up being more expensive when it's supposed to cut shipping costs. I'm still upset about that, no one likes to get scammed. It looks like a very nice stone, did you lap it yourself?
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I've used Buyee as well with moderate success. In my experience, consolidation can go either way. It is very much a question of striking a balance between weight and volume. The minimum box size for shipping is larger than most individual stones, but if you go above the weight threshold for a given service, you'll pay more. It's definitely a bit of a guessing game though and Buyee of course gets their piece of the pie no matter how you slice it.
I don't speak Japanese so I appreciate the value of a proxy service. But yeah, I get your frustration...shipping the items from the seller to the proxy, then from the proxy to you, and then having to pay duties on top of all that...it certainly doesn't work out to cheap. But then again, we're talking about buying old rocks. Niche hobbies are expensive.

Edit: Nope, haven't lapped it. It came nice and flat.
 
That's very true, and I do recognize all of the above! 😄

I had to lap my stone, but I knew that before I won the auction. I actually enjoy lapping stones, as long as they're not super hard like a black ark or similar.
 
cantdecidewhichone said:
I don’t know what any if these are but wow they’re nice!
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It's stated on my ig account
Left to right, top to bottom.
1. Natsuya
2. Natsuya
3. Aizu
4. Tajima
5. Maruoyama Ao Suita Namazu
6. Maruoyama Ao Suita Tenkasumi
7. Umajiyama Renge Suita
8. Shinden Suita
9. Shoubudani Karasu
10. Shoubudani Renge Suita Suminagashi
11. Ohira Renge Sunashi Suita Suminagashi
12. Ozuku Habutae Suita
13. Nakayama Maruka Namito
14. Shoubudani Maruka Asagi
 
Can you guys tell me more about this stone? I bought it a while back but never use it. It was listed as Ohira Tomae.
 

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SundayGourmet said:
Can you guys tell me more about this stone? I bought it a while back but never use it. It was listed as Ohira Tomae.
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Typical brown tomae, there's a lot of garbage that looks like that but occasionally you can find real treasures too. That one looks a bit on the harder side, test it out!
 
naader said:
Typical brown tomae, there's a lot of garbage that looks like that but occasionally you can find real treasures too. That one looks a bit on the harder side, test it out!
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It is hard. I've tried it. Pretty nice. I just don't know where id use it in progression with my other stones. How would you use it?
 

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naader said:
Typical brown tomae, there's a lot of garbage that looks like that but occasionally you can find real treasures too. That one looks a bit on the harder side, test it out!
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I was thinking about getting one of these. I am looking at the harder one but I don't know if it's really trash or I need to test it out first.
 
zizirex said:
I was thinking about getting one of these. I am looking at the harder one but I don't know if it's really trash or I need to test it out first.
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I've lapped stamps off dozens of these brown ohira tomae and while there were some killer finds, a lot of them also ended up as decorations in my mother's garden. Test first if you can.
 
naader said:
I've lapped stamps off dozens of these brown ohira tomae and while there were some killer finds, a lot of them also ended up as decorations in my mother's garden. Test first if you can.
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What are the qualities you look for in a killer find?
 
SundayGourmet said:
What are the qualities you look for in a killer find?
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It really just comes down to performance. The range in what you could consider a nice polish is so wide and variable for every hardness that it's kind of impossible to explain with words
 
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