Coticule love... show off your rock
- Thread starter Drybonz
- Start date
Good finds for $12 indeed. But you know, that is almost the way it should be. The price for coticule stones now in my opinion is nothing short of obscene. Every stone is my collection (including the dozen or so that I sold) except the one from Perfect Edge were all purchased for less than $40. Many were less than $20. It wasn't until the coticules were sold out of distribution hubs here in the USA added to the fact that the larger forum shaving communities discovered them "en masse" that prices got way out of control. When I first belonged to Straight Razor Place about 6 or 7 years ago, that shaving forum didn't even know about coticule stones except for a couple of guys that weren't very vocal about it. Synthetic waterstones ruled in those days.
I called Belgium and spoke with folks at the people at the Ardenne mine and they said that they wanted an American distributor and would I be interested. I said yes, and we discussed terms. At that time, they only wanted to give their American distributor a percentage off of their selling price for the stones and it was way to low to be practical and no good solution to damaged or inferior stones that were received. I rejected their offer but apparently they had become hot on the idea and found others that were either able to negotiate better terms than I, or accepted their rather poor ones. In any event, coticules were now once again coming into the United States. Then came the dollar vs euro troubles and the price increased on European optics and other imported commodities - and of course, coticules. Now the euro is in trouble, but the prices never went back down. Don't exactly understand that.
When you have a few sources in control of a market, that market can be manipulated more easily. In my mind that has happened with the new imported stones, which then drove up the price of vintage stones to crazy levels (which often are better than the newly imported stones as the really good veins were more accessible during the years the vintage stones were produced.) People pay the prices because coticule stones work really well and far more pleasant to use than synthetic stones. It's just a shame that the price has to be so high now days that the average person has poor access to them.
That's all quite interesting.
Of course the flipside to the price thing, if Ardennes was not getting so much money for their stones they might have decided that it was not profitable enough to mine them, and we would only have vintage stones to choose from. Which would not help me much. I've never seen one in the wild here. I have no idea what hones were used in Australia in the old days. I've never seen more than a barber hone in an antique shop.
- Thread starter
- #984
That is very true. I think we are seeing a rather strange offshoot of that very thinking with Norton Abrasives and this was alluded to earlier by another poster in an Arkansas Stones thread. Companies are now making so much money with synthetic abrasive products that cutting natural stone into little blocks is a minor blip on their screen. The two largest sellers of current Arkansas stones out of the state of Arkansas are Halls and Dan's Whetstones. There may be a third player in just the last few years, but until that time, these were the only two companies mining and selling Arkansas stones in any quantity. But both Halls and Dans are very small companies with only a very small mining operation. The reason for this is that Norton Abrasives has bought up almost all the mineral rights in the state of Arkansas. And they just sit on them. Most of the mining that they do is grinding up stone to make synthetic abrasives of all kinds and shapes. They are making so much money at this that revisiting mining quality veins to cut up for bench stones is more than likely the very last thing on their mind.
So here we have a case of quality natural sharpening stones going away not because there are no longer veins of the material to be mined, but rather because control rests with a single powerful entity that has other plans for making profit.
You can post the price. I would like to know as well even you only want to pm please. I would appreciate knowing please. Thanks in advance.
. Maurice was also a pleasure to deal with. Very, very helpful. Considering its a combination stone, and 200x50 rectangle, I think he gave me a great price. Im sure its just the first of many more to come for me...p.s. I'll post photos as soon as I get it
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That is an excellent price!
He had a.few others, although just a little more expensive, in the low €200 + range. Which is still good, if im reading the market for these stones correctly. Just what I'm gathering from all the reading I've been, doing
you are correct
You are correct the market for rectangles is high dollar. Especially when you get into the 200x50 range. Nice stone I can't wait to see it.
Thanks, can't wait to get it... And once again, thank you for all of your help here..I've been just a tad bit overzealous and anal about settling on my first real stone...Hopefully this does it...and I can get to learning and honing....I even bought one of those Ardennes boxes for it
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I wouldn't count on this being your last one, if it is you have more will power than I do.
Chunky. Should serve your grandsons well.
That is a wonderful stone and I have found the La grise like yours give an exceptional edge when used with Mineral oil. Just the plain thick stuff drom the pharmacy or Dollar store is perfect. Put about 6 drops on 20-30 laps to a blissful shave
~~~here's my piece of La Vienette Chef
$35 delivered...but it's a bit smaller than yours...21X24X145mm
despite it's dimunutive dimensions, it's still a nice slice o' rock to sharpen a straight with, so long as you're sober and careful=
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
~~~here's my piece of La Vienette Chef
$35 delivered...but it's a bit smaller than yours...21X24X145mm
despite it's dimunutive dimensions, it's still a nice slice o' rock to sharpen a straight with, so long as you're sober and careful=
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
$35 ?! Wow! Ardennes themselves would pay you more than that for that' stone... How did you manage that?
Also you must have the hand of surgeon, I would never be able to keep my razor flat on a narrow stone like that with my little experience..pretty impressive...
It is pretty chunky though. Nice
~~~it's a fairly small piece of coticule...I bought it from Jarrod a few months back (thesuperiorshave)
~~~you work very slowly. it can be done doing x strokes (regular, rolling, swaying), but 1/2 strokes?, now that's a challeange, though- can be done...you have to work slowly, no room room for error
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
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