Hello bkultra, nice to meet you.
Since I am a new member in this forum.
So if you don't mind, I will do a short introduction about my journey in natural stone sharpening over the past year (I treated this comment as a dairy of myself as well, and so some of the paragraph below may deviate from major stone sharpening ideology).
***Anyway, sorry in advance for the lengthy paragraph and my poor language***
-----
Initially, I was only fascinated by Japanese single-bevel knife (Deba to be exact) with literally no interest in sharpening (of course until now both of them are sharing equal importance in my life). I remembered when I first got my deba, I only used shapton 12000 to sharpen it and thought it is more than enough (which is very silly).
However, the turning point occurred when I finally realized the cosmetic finish a sharpening stone can give to the blade. Starting from that moment, I realized the limitation for synthetic stone and began to dive deep into the "black hole" of natural stone, soughing stones that does not only produce good cosmetic effect but also appealing in their own appearance and rarity (that's why I am about to go bankrupt
).
For me, since I am not a professional chef but a home cook specialized in architecture and stuff, and so natural stone not only a mere "tool" for me but instead SUBLIMES into a piece of "artwork/sculpture" or you may say a "gift" from the nature, while this gift has a special "accompany feature" that allow you to use it to sharpen your knife
. Such kinds of primitive, organic and idealistic fantasy in natural stone sharpening is the biggest romance that long "haunted" my mind and giving me the biggest motivation to continue dive deep in this rabbit hole to the point that I literally willing to forgo most of my previous interest to sough for a high quality stones.
---
Anyway, I was "officially" trapped into this rabbit hole last year after re-reading many articles and scientific research posted on yanmodiy.com (permanently closed unfortunately), wrote by hardcore natural stone collectors from China and Taiwan. And I believe this forum played a significant role constituting my "belief" on natural stone (i.e. start off by trying high quality stone and don't waste time on cheap one). I know it may seems absurd for most people but I believe it is true to certain extent. In other words, even though you may buy stones with high price, but this value, unlike automobile or mobile phone, will not depreciate (or even inflate) overtime as long as it is the authentic one. For this reason, I am pretty convinced with this belief when walking on the path of natural stone sharpening + collecting.
And after staying in this rabbit hole for year, I gradually realize and sense (by my own instinct) how the "price" works in classifying different qualities of stones (***This "price range system" only applicable in reputable seller such as Watanabe or Tanaka as most of the retailers usually inflated the price for 30-50% and so it is not accurate to be the measuring standard in this system). Anyway, it does not mean I am totally skeptical about buying stone by pure luck nor believing there are stones which both perform and cheap in price (performance is somewhat a subjective personal standard I my opinion...), but I think there is always a reason listing the stone at certain price (Again, it is not an absolute as some dishonest seller may overly priced their stone even though their stones are low in quality). But still, looking at how reputable seller list the price for their stones are certainly a great practice sharpening my ability in roughly understanding the relationship between stones and their values.
Anyway, my very first Jnats were purchased from gokitcyou (there is almost no one mention this store in the forum): a hard Kouzaki aoto and black tsushima bench stone. Performance is "ok" but not the best one in my collection...
Fortunately, I did not suffer much from buying fake or low quality stone since I never buy stones from auction or ebay except for the asano naguras. But still I have bought a stone from nonosandesu, which is a great failure for me (I mean the stone performs well but the seller just marked the price twice higher in ebay than what he marked in Yahoo Auction Japan...) Anyway, I will return the stone to him so it is not a big deal after all.
To keep it short, it is overall a very enjoyable moment for me searching for stones over this year, especially the middle-grid stone (nakato) from different buyers, such as from gokitcyou, Watanabe, yunoki2244 or even directly from Tanaka san. The moment when you finally find what you long sought for is truly priceless.
Indeed, diving in this rabbit hole requires lots of money, time, failure in order to let you learn a precious lesson which others may not able to tell you. For example, during the journey of searching for stones, I have once tried to buy stones from diverse sellers and websites from Japan (e.g. e-toishi, toishi.jp, toishikan, saicom, namikawa and other stone shops in Hong Kong). By all mean, they are all reputable seller from Japan and Hong Kong, but you know, when you are staying in the rabbit hole long enough, you will gradually realize WHAT YOU REALLY WANT and I think such realization of your own desire and the reduction, condensation and optimization of sellers you are really going to seriously invest in are kinda a sign of maturity (can't find the right word for it) in this mystic field of interest.
Anyway, I will post more thread about my actual experience with each stones (I used to post them on Facebook though), hope you guys will like it.
---
Here is the list and record of stone I bought and once owned (in chronological manner), it will be great if you guys can also share yours to me!
(synthetic and diamond plate did not include in the list)
Aoto and Tsushima
V
Atagoyama Tomae
V
Ohira Akapin
V
Ohira Iromono
V
Asano Nagura (mejiro, ban, botan, tenjou, koma)
V
Maruoyama Shiro Suita
V
Nakayama Kiita Tomae
V
Ohira Renge Suita, Amakusa, Binsui, Mizukibara tomae
V
Asano Nagura Atsu and koma
V
Iyodo
V
Soft aoto
V
Kaisei (brown)
V
Wakayama Omura, Saeki
V
Nagasaki Omura, Numata
V
Asano Nagura Atsu (Big)
V
Kaisei (blue), Jokyoji
Again, thank you so much for reading and hope to exchange more knowledge with you guys in the future.