These stones sure can get pretty.

I'm up to six and we may have another member getting one soon, so I'm thinking it's time I stake a claim on the rights to name this stone. I'm leaning towards Ratisbon hone, as it will excellently confuse people, while simultaneously paying homage to the stones similarities to both Coticules and Thuringians.

In the meantime, just look at this stone. Les Lat ain't got nothing on us.

Pretty stone.

Can't agree there. Nothing out there is going to beat a les lat on looks imo. The hybrid side has a depth to the color that can't be described in pics.





And this one is just wild.

Oh snap! The gauntlet has been thrown. I fully expect to see some mind-bogglingly awesome-looking stones in this thread! Ready...begin!

SliceOfLife said:

I'm up to six and we may have another member getting one soon, so I'm thinking it's time I stake a claim on the rights to name this stone. I'm leaning towards Ratisbon hone, as it will excellently confuse people, while simultaneously paying homage to the stones similarities to both Coticules and Thuringians.

In the meantime, just look at this stone. Les Lat ain't got nothing on us.

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har har...yeah it looks nice.....

conderning the Ratisbon Hone it still believe its an error made in old literature

I know that there is a reference in older documents and also that there is a sample of the Ratisbone Stone
in the U.S. National Museum...but also there is a Picture of the structure of the stone, and it contains garnets analogue to a Coticule...
http://straightrazorplace.com/hones/46672-slate-backed-german-yellow-razor-stones-2.html

Yeah, it seems generally the idea is that coticules were mistakenly called german hones through some channels of export. Someone said they came from Ratisbon. Hence there became parallel descriptions of identical stones as "Ratisbon" hones and "Belgian" hones.
That's the idea of the name. These stones look like the offspring of a coti and a thuri's carnal relations, they shave like a coti but with the closeness of a thuri edge, and they could almost pass for either on appearance. They're like some kind of Fiji Mermaid stone.

SliceOfLife said:

Yeah, it seems generally the idea is that coticules were mistakenly called german hones through some channels of export. Someone said they came from Ratisbon. Hence there became parallel descriptions of identical stones as "Ratisbon" hones and "Belgian" hones.
That's the idea of the name. These stones look like the offspring of a coti and a thuri's carnal relations, they shave like a coti but with the closeness of a thuri edge, and they could almost pass for either on appearance. They're like some kind of Fiji Mermaid stone.

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I always have the yellow layers of thuringian stones in mind, Peter has written a Thread about them....but i believe these a more homogenious and without these swirls and lines...
http://straightrazorplace.com/hones...tones-some-interesting-geological-issues.html

Here is an example which releases yellow slurry...shurely looks different then the ones you showed Ian...

Yeah, I've only got one of these stones without all the swirls and it looks virtually identical to my Y/G thuri, with the exception that it's coloring is a bit more minty. But I've had both hard and soft y/g thuri's, and this one acts and feels like a soft one, but it's harder than a hard one. The sides also cut and gouge much, much more like very old and hard coticules than thuringians.

In the end it wouldn't surprise me to find out that these stones are some sort of thuringians, but they're different enough from any thuringians I've had in the past that I certainly can't call them that.

Ian just wanted to exchange some Information, what do you think about the stones Thaeris posted here? Do they resample the stones you own ?

http://straightrazorplace.com/showthread.php?t=92323

Thaeris wrote they might have their origin in France...no Coticules....

I kind of think these are some strange variant of coticule that has been lost to time. I have a habit of buying old paddle hones as well and have encountered some really strange, high-performance stuff.

Are any of these for sale?

Also, did Ian find these locally or something?

kcb5150 said:

I kind of think these are some strange variant of coticule that has been lost to time. I have a habit of buying old paddle hones as well and have encountered some really strange, high-performance stuff.

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It's not impossible. If anything, I'd expect they're similar to Les Lat marble layer, though they are far, far too soft to actually be that. One of the things I need to do is compare Les Lat marble slurry under the scope. Compared to Traditional coticule, I'd say the slurry more than proves these are not at all similar to coticule in composition. The particle size of coticule slurry appears more than ten times the largest particle size of one of these stones.


Sebastian, I would bet a million dollars those are my stones. No question at all.

This stone is the most similar to a LL in appearance of all of them. I'll get a group shot, most of them look much more like his stones. The slurry and the difference in appearance from a lapped surface to an unlapped as you see in his pictures where the high center is leveled makes me 100% certain it's the exact same stone as what I collect.


Hunter: all from eBay but one (from BST as a coticule). I've bought seven on eBay and let two or three go (they went for more than I was willing to pay, most likely to people misidentifying them as coticules). About half of them were in lots of razor hones, so combined with the cuts and paddles, I'd say it's almost certain they were used nearly exclusively for razors. They typically are misidentified as coticules or Charnley forests, with the occasional Thuri claim.

SliceOfLife said:

Sebastian, I would bet a million dollars those are my stones. No question at all.

This stone is the most similar to a LL in appearance of all of them. I'll get a group shot, most of them look much more like his stones. The slurry and the difference in appearance from a lapped surface to an unlapped as you see in his pictures where the high center is leveled makes me 100% certain it's the exact same stone as what I collect.

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Interesting thats what i thought, so thanks Ian for the optical verification! Would be Interesting if the french guys (Thaeris and Antoine) can further more research on these....

I'd love if they could. So far I can add that one came from a US-based member here. 2 came from eBay in the US. 2 from the UK, 2 from france and 1 from Spain. They all seem very, very old from the paddles I've found with them, mid-late 19th century by my guess (I'm no expert at dating wood though). The four dark paddles in that picture are original. The one on the left is a wooden pestle I sanded flat to glue that stone to. They look like dark walnut to me, maybe? Definitely not dense enough to be mahogany, but beyond that I'm not certain.

SliceOfLife said:

I'm up to six and we may have another member getting one soon, so I'm thinking it's time I stake a claim on the rights to name this stone. I'm leaning towards Ratisbon hone, as it will excellently confuse people, while simultaneously paying homage to the stones similarities to both Coticules and Thuringians.

In the meantime, just look at this stone. Les Lat ain't got nothing on us.

Click to expand...

that sure makes me think this one (middle) is a cousin to your stone

(my pics don't show color correctly, mine is just barely darker in person than your pics)

Ian can you shot some sidepics? are there any colour changes?

What about slurry and worked slurry pics?

greets Sebastian.

Forgot to add, mine is glued to a very dense, dark BBW (pretty sure it is BBW because when slurried with DMT slurry is purple)

That is really cool Ian!

And here I thought I could ignore those paddle hones and ugly old hone lots.

Goodbye every extra penny I earn!

aephilli said:

Forgot to add, mine is glued to a very dense, dark BBW (pretty sure it is BBW because when slurried with DMT slurry is purple)

Click to expand...

That would be the main clue to me that it's not the same, as I've never seen one of these stones backed. From the top, I couldn't say one way or the other. The pattern isn't the "typical" swirl, but in the past six months or so, I've seen a handful that diverge from that pattern (the first four or five I had were all very similarly patterned with a swirl similar to the top of hindo or a Dalmore (but not so regular as dalmores)).

I'll start a thread about these stones tonight, with the pics you guys are asking for.

Sebastian (Doorsch) bought a small stone from UK a couple hours ago that I'm 80-90% sure is another of these, so hopefully he'll be able to comment on it when it arrives.


Hunter, let me say that I've bought probably a hundred stones in old paddles, and the ONLY one I've gotten that wasn't a good razor finisher is this Boxed "Welch" hone that brags about how amazing it is. If you can identify coarse stones for throwing edges on pocket and kitchen knives and avoid those (Washita's, Synths, and other very coarse stones), it seems almost every other stone that was put in paddles 100+ years ago was put there for use with razors. Larger tools stones seemed to typically get put in boxes like you see with Washita's and Carborundums. Of course you'll find thuringians and coti's in boxes too, but paddles definitely are a strong sign for me that the stone was probably used for razors.

Very usefull information, i'm definately keeping my eye out from now on.

I think it's awesome there are such high performance mystery stones out there.