La Lorraine/ Rouge Du Salm

[SliceOfLife]

So, I've noticed that in the past few months every BBW that shows up on eBay has suddenly become a La Lorraine or Rouge Du Salm. It's getting to the point where it's worse than the old days when every oil-encrusted Synth anyone found was an "Escher" and every two sided stone was a "coticule". Now I'm no expert on these stones, but I've got exactly THREE examples of BBW that I believe are likely to be Rouge Du Salm, and they're all pretty darn distinct. I'm curious what people with more experience with these stones have to say about how readily eBayers are to label their BBW's as Rouge or Lorraine these days, as well as to see some more definitively identified examples of them.


The first is the one I'm most confident about. Deep Burgandy Red in between two layers of BBW on a vintage I picked up awhile back. Completely sandwiched, which makes the distinction from the surrounding rock pretty obvious. Ignore the nasty hairbrush.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Last pic of the above stone... then, my second.

This stone I had no clue about for awhile, I just thought it was a crazy looking stone. If anything more red than the above stone, but It appears to actually be the very edge of a Rouge layer where some upheaval sent spikes of BBW into the layer. Kept it because it's by far the craziest looking BBW I've ever seen.

 

[SliceOfLife]

And finally, the one I'm least confident about. The one that reminds me of the very black/plain looking Labeled Lorraines (with the cabin and trees label). Again, a distinct divide BBW to Lorraine... also the white dots associated with the layer.

 

[David]

I've noticed the same thing...every stone it seems, glued or not is Lorainne/RDS. Scott and I were laughing about this a while back. Those guys read these forums and say what people want to hear.
Anyway, I only have one and it's a labeled La Lorraine. I do have a couple of glued vintages where the BBW is 'pretty' (and I think the ebayers instantly associate 'pretty' with RDS) but they do not perform anywhere close to the labeled Lorraine.

 

[SliceOfLife]

What would you relate the performance of the Lorraine to? I've found BBW to be quite mediocre in general as a hone, and as such have always hesitated to drop the coin on a labeled Lorraine. Goldfisch are really the only one's I've taken serious shots at (I think they'd be cool as a collectable, performance notwithstanding), but haven't yet won.

 

[David]

It's very similar to a good coti edge. It's slower on slurry and really slow on water, but it leaves a hell of a polish. The labeled Lorraine's, when they come up aren't usually expensive. I paid 15 for mine (5x1.25).

 

[SliceOfLife]

Thanks, yeah, I'm in no hurry for one than. I've seen others say they gave them sharper edges than Eschers and things like that, and have a hard time believing those claims.

Yeah, I remember those ones went pretty reasonably. Probably in part because he listed so many at once. I think I actually just forgot to bid before they ended on that batch. Wanna say I checked my ebay, realized I forgot and was surprised they had gone so cheaply. Everyone was focused on getting the biggest one and the smaller ones wound up being steals as a result.

 

[David]

You're welcome to try mine. Just shoot me your address. I never use it so keep it as long as you want/need.

 

[Doorsch]

Ian well said! I can quite agree on the fact that you pointed out here, and well its not ok to "call" something different just to reach a higher selling price....

On the other hand we have to accept that also a Rouge Du Salm is a BBW as its taken out from this layer, with some differences in my point of view...

It has a clearer reddish to wine red coloration and with a good tecnique or either used oil or water/glycerine i can give a edge quite on par as good Coticule can give.

I must admit that we still dont know enough about these stones in detail and i think that also Henk would have agreed on this. So there is more work to be done in my point of view.

As an example i could give the stone you showed. I think you could be right that the layer in between shown might be a Lorraine Rouge. Up to date i dont know how thick these layers really are, or if they could be as thick or thin the nature has grown them...

Using the stones is mostly the point to really identify if we talk about a Lorraine Rouge or a BBW...besides the Coloration, the layering visible on the sides and sometimes inclusions which can be iron oxide inclusions or white lines and inclusion (which might be aluminium oxide, which is a personal guess and not proven)

 

[SliceOfLife]

Thanks, David. I appreciate it.

Sebastian, interesting, but are Lorraine really that distinct in use from other BBW to you? I remember back in the day some folks at Coticule.be did that shave test with BBW vs Coti, and they seemed to believe that BBW in general performed almost exactly as David describes Lorraine performing; as in approximately equal to coti finish, but slower. That description of BBW as equal to coti, but slower (while certainly not thought true by everyone) has been maintained by many Coti/BBW users for nearly a decade now. So if that's the measure of a Lorraine, then the guys who feel that way about BBW will find every BBW to be Lorraine in their testing, wouldn't they?

 

[David]

No problem, it's in the mail. (How's that for fast shipping).
Looking forward to your thoughts.

 

[Bushdoctor]

Well, seems that there's a lot of confusion about this stones,let me expose my different point of view and what I think about it based on my experience.
I own both labelled Lorraine and La Lorraine Rouge, and recently I was also in the Ardenne to try to find some evidence.
For me, Rouge du Salm is a BBW layer, just more purple of the other.
The Lorraine, it could be a layer sandwiched between 2 BBW layer.
The Lorraine Rouge or the Goldfisch Wetzstein are for me from an another source, which I believe it could be in the french Vosgienne region. It also could be possible that this stones could be quarryed from some lost coticule quarry but I haven't found evindences.
In the pics you can see the results of test on field.

 

[Doorsch]

Actually i again have to underline my previous statements....

Stones Labellled as "LA LORRAINE" = Lorraine Rouge
Stones Labelled as "GOLDFISCH WETZSETIN" = Lorraine Rouge
Unlabelled from Ardennes = Lorraine Rouge

I personally cant rule out that any stones were quarried from any different quarry and then also labelled as "LA LORRAINE" who knows...
But for the stones i own i can tell that either "LA LORRAINE", my Goldfisch Wetzsteins (3 of them) and the one i got from Ardennes was the same material. Working different in details as with many natural stones....

What i also pointed out is that i cant speak for the stones beeing sold from the Follow Up Company of D. Giovannacci & L. & B. Ghelfi running under Belle with the Trademark M.P.O.P. because i do not own such a stone. But i personally wouldnt surprised when these are also Lorraine Rouge....

The post is not to offend Fabrizio in any way and i think we both are interested in the same topics and to get more answers about the stones themselves. A lot more of work is needed to be done. I mentioned it earlier that this is only "my" personal Theory and doesnt need not be shared....

@Fabrizio: Thanks for sharing the pictures here! Can you add some more information and details on the Field tests you posted ? Just to get it right, these were pieces taken out at your meetup at Ardennes ? And the mixed layers (BBW/Lorraine) were broken down in smaller pieces to see the coloration better?

Did you had the possibility to check some Lorraines at Ardennes Fabrizio?

 

[Doorsch]

Thanks, David. I appreciate it.

Sebastian, interesting, but are Lorraine really that distinct in use from other BBW to you? I remember back in the day some folks at Coticule.be did that shave test with BBW vs Coti, and they seemed to believe that BBW in general performed almost exactly as David describes Lorraine performing; as in approximately equal to coti finish, but slower. That description of BBW as equal to coti, but slower (while certainly not thought true by everyone) has been maintained by many Coti/BBW users for nearly a decade now. So if that's the measure of a Lorraine, then the guys who feel that way about BBW will find every BBW to be Lorraine in their testing, wouldn't they?

Ian i personally think that a good Lorraine Rouge (a fine one) is a very great stone and i more begin to like these stones.
We have to accept here that the layer isnt that constant, youll have areas were stones beeing taken from which might be on the
softer side and tend to auto slurry. There might be regions were the Salm layer is much harder, so you cant say Lorraine Rouge, its that...

Actually all trials shaving with a plain BBW without using pastes or stuff werent never that comfortable for me. Using a fine variant of a Lorraine Rouge with water/glycerine in the finishing phase brought some really great shaves which werent far away from a very good coticule. So i always would prefer a good Lorraine Rouge far away from a normal BBW Stone.

the guys who feel that way about BBW will find every BBW to be Lorraine in their testing, wouldn't they?

Actually its a BBW just to say it again, a BBW with better properties

I see, that i didnt post the comparison picture here, because my original post was deleted several time ago, so here is the shot i posted, the three on the left are all La Lorraine (a LA LORRAINE, a GOLDFISCH and a unlabelled one)

all Lorraines (sideview) with layering, you see also a different coloration:

Overview of all stones (left finest Lorraine nearly no visible grain ultra fine, middle visible typical BBW structure coloration very wine red very red slurry, right typical BBW structure mixed up with blue hues banding, then two Belgian Blue Stones)

Detail shot of the very fine variant in comparison:

 

[Doorsch]

Some Razor Sized Stones in 14x7cm with the mentioned inclusions...i think Iron Oxide...and the white stuff

 

[Doorsch]

Goldfisch, same Material:

 

[Bushdoctor]

I'm not feeled offended, I'm just try to make a bit of clearness, as posted above, in the recent times there are lot of people thinking they have a Lorraine Rouge instead is a BBW, this happen because they've researched the info from some wrong source. I'm also not pretend to have all the reason or be polemic, just my 2 cents, you have the choice to choose what kind of info is more near to the truth, maybe one day we can found all the info that we need to resolve this mistery but at today, we have just to suppose.

About the pictures, they are taken in the Ardenne, exactly in Ol'Preu quarry (the first pic) and Regnè quarry the other two shoots.
In the fistr one, you can see a layered rock with blue inclusion, this layer is sandwiched between 2 BBW layer and could be what I identify in the Lorraine (not Lorraine Rouge).
The second pic show you the result of field drilling, and you can see the different colors of the stone which tell you what you meet if you dig there.
In the third pic, is clearly visible a deep purple coloration of the stone which it could be associated to the Lorraine.

 

[Doorsch]

About the pictures, they are taken in the Ardenne, exactly in Ol'Preu quarry (the first pic) and Regnè quarry the other two shoots.
In the fistr one, you can see a layered rock with blue inclusion, this layer is sandwiched between 2 BBW layer and could be what I identify in the Lorraine (not Lorraine Rouge).
The second pic show you the result of field drilling, and you can see the different colors of the stone which tell you what you meet if you dig there.
In the third pic, is clearly visible a deep purple coloration of the stone which it could be associated to the Lorraine.

thanks for pointing out more details Fabrizio!!

 

[kcb5150]

The really soft autoslurrying Lorraine is a very different experience to use than a coti or salm. It also fits in the progression differently. I only ever got one coti with it as a backing and I don't think it was done in general really. I'm not terribly fond of normal bbw either. The only bbw I find ok is the really dark blue almost featureless variant.it's not that hard to spot salm if the stone is clean and photos are good. The really good stuff has this diagonal grain that is very pronounced. There is another variety that is sort of a berry red with slightly darker pinhead dots. Salm in general mops the floor with normal bbw. It performs pretty much on par with typical coticules. They also have very potent polishing capabilities for some reason.

 

[hatzicho]

Well I am not sure if we ever reach a consensus of what a Lorraine really is. Fabrizio - I am not sure if you had been there at the moment, when André, the geologist of Ardennes, clearly identified my La Lorraine Rouge MPOP as a hone from the Lorraine layer as well as my so-called vosgienne stone and also the Goldfish from Kees I think. He also could not absolutely roule out, that the red LaLune might be a Lorraine.
At present Ardennes coticule sells the La Lorraine as BBW. However, it is an own class of whetstone, no coticule and no phyllade (BBW). This is clearly pointed out in the detailed study about coticules from Joseph Grogna: Les Roche Salmienes a coticule dans le region de Salmchateau", dated 1984.

Here are some extractions from his study.
La Lorraine is clearly identified as a layer between material of phyllade here:



In another section he gets even more clear describing the La Lorraine as a very special abrasive stone called Lorraine.


And finally here:



he descrobes the Lorraine as whetstone of medium quality - keeping in mind that he only talks about coticules! BBW doesn't get any notice in his study.
So for me personally the La Lorraine is a special layer - more a coticule than a BBW, with very good honing capabilities, not reaching finally the best coticule layers such as La Veinette.