Bought a lot from the french baker (ebay coticules)

[Pack line]

I spend a lot of (too much) time on ebay. Never have seen stone like that or that seller. Must be my settings or something. Nice looking stones, i love rustic bout looking stones.
Slightly off topic question, how was shipping time from France? I only ask because i have a package from Belgium sitting in dhl prison in new york for like a week now. Quickly approaching a month from shipment to receiving.

 

[Calou]

Stone taken from "1Stone" and delivered in France so.... i don't know for NY

 

[lloydw]

Must be good to get little box with a handful of stones at once, makes for a fun few days of testing I am sure. Enjoy

what is the ‘baker‘ reference, is it a specific seller?

 

[SliceOfLife]

So.... #1 turned out to be quite dished... the same dishing that barbers hones develop, hollowed out all along one edge.... I suspect the seller cut it off a much wider stone as the "dished piece" so he didn't have to lap away as much of the stone to get it flat and sold the main stone elsewhere.... after I got it flat, about half the surface is made up of the middle layer... the layer that is characteristic of a very popular vintage vein (the kind that often has that crazy looking BBW). Not sure if ardennes produces any stones with this layer... I've only seen it on vintage stones.

The shave is exactly what that layer always gives me... significantly better than an avg coticule edge but a hair behind my absolute best coticules... still very much a score given my expectations going into this lot.


Shipping was through some third party service (not dhl) and took three days.


"Baker" is referring to an Ebay seller from France who started selling a mix of coticules and not coticules on ebay maybe seven years ago or so. He called everything a coticule and was gluing anything green he could find to slate backing... got a bad reputation based on that.... over the years he's listed dozens if not hundreds of stones including some really incredible looking ones. I've never had a chance to try any of his stones before and was always wary that he might be selling a lot of material that ardennes tossed as no good for honing on. This lot is my attempt to see just how good his stuff so I will know the next time a really irresistible stone comes up.

Anyway a few years back someone met him and learned that his background is he's a baker.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So initially my plan was to work down the line from the ones I thought were most likely to be good hones to the ones I thought were least likely.

After 2 successes though I figured I was kind of setting myself up for disappointment... so I decided to diverge to the least likely one to be a good hone for act 3.


The grey side.

So... hht was still reasonable, and shave didn't feel like the edge was damaged from the dish/black area or give the weepers/irritation I'd expect if it was chipping up the edge.

Shave was poor for a coticule. Same closeness roughly as a mediocre coticule but less comfortable... honestly it has been years since I had a bbw shave... but my feeling is this was roughly a decent bbw shave... and likely the grey is bbw/yellow coti very thoroughly mixed. For a more recent comparison.... it shaved like a random mystery slate I wouldn't bother shaving off of a second time... can it finish a razor? Yes. Should anyone use it for that? I'd say no.

Still figuring on testing the opposite side tomorrow... but it's a 50/50 split of manganese loaded coti and bbw... so I fully expect it will be a bbw quality shave too. Probably would be a nice shave if I just used the coti section but that's small... like 2x2" so not practical in my book, so I'm going to use the whole side, Coti And BBW.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So the other side had nice abrasion and actually was a surprisingly good hone... But I don't even need a shave test. From the feedback on the hone and the HHT, it's 100% standard BBW edge. Basically a very fast/effective BBW hone. Next shave test will probably be one of the "les-lat hybrid" looking stones.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So the "Coti" side of the hybrid stone #4 feels soft, but doesn't autoslurry, and is actually quite slow... Glazes over a bit. A bit of an odd duck. HHT is avg coti. Will hopefully shave later today and see how it does.

I've started lapping the hybrid side just to get a flat enough stretch to test for kicks.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So if you were to take a les lat hybrid finish and a average coti finish and distribute them randomly along an entire razor edge... you'd get what #4 (soft side) gives you. A little dull feeling, almost tuggy first pass... like a avg/below avg coti... then its suddenly a light saber for later passes (like a hybrid). End result is a very interesting that is a mix of some avg coticule properties and some hybrid properties. I dont think I prefer it to hybrid, but I would take it over an avg coti. Honestly, great shave once I get past the "this isnt sharp" feeling of the first pass.

 

[Empire straights]

So.... #1 turned out to be quite dished... the same dishing that barbers hones develop, hollowed out all along one edge.... I suspect the seller cut it off a much wider stone as the "dished piece" so he didn't have to lap away as much of the stone to get it flat and sold the main stone elsewhere.... after I got it flat, about half the surface is made up of the middle layer... the layer that is characteristic of a very popular vintage vein (the kind that often has that crazy looking BBW). Not sure if ardennes produces any stones with this layer... I've only seen it on vintage stones.

The shave is exactly what that layer always gives me... significantly better than an avg coticule edge but a hair behind my absolute best coticules... still very much a score given my expectations going into this lot.


Shipping was through some third party service (not dhl) and took three days.


"Baker" is referring to an Ebay seller from France who started selling a mix of coticules and not coticules on ebay maybe seven years ago or so. He called everything a coticule and was gluing anything green he could find to slate backing... got a bad reputation based on that.... over the years he's listed dozens if not hundreds of stones including some really incredible looking ones. I've never had a chance to try any of his stones before and was always wary that he might be selling a lot of material that ardennes tossed as no good for honing on. This lot is my attempt to see just how good his stuff so I will know the next time a really irresistible stone comes up.

Anyway a few years back someone met him and learned that his background is he's a baker.

That vintage layer with the crazy bbw is awesome and my favorite coticule to shave off of. It's almost like an ark, but the real gem is that crazy looking, glassy bbw attached to the backside. I like it better that the coticule layer attached to it. I have another smaller vintage combo that almost matches performance and feel perfectly but it's faster on the blue side. It has quickly become my favorite knife/ tool stone. The Belgian blue side doesn't have the peacock feather eyes my other one does but I can almost guarantee its same layer/ mine, if not same period/production run. I had to buy a lot of coticules to find another one that matched performance and I still wish I had a dozen more. They cut anything, quickly but put smooth edges on razors and aggressive edges on knives. One of God's wonders, truly.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Yeah I've had a few stones like that one you show. They remind me of hard La Veinettes, but because of looks I think they're another vein, just similar performing. I think that's the vein that was most commonly sold as "kosher" stones. Yellow side is usually a little darker than avg and very consistent... like melted butter from very orange cream or a very pale turkish coffee.