My old one and my new one are pretty much identical in every way except hardness. The newer one(and most newer one I've had) are softer. Excellent stones and will absolutly take care of a razor all day long. I sharpen a lot more stuff than razors so I like the old ones because they don't wear as fast, and they're usually a little cheaper if you're lucky. My fastest coticule is a newly mined les lat and the yellow side is pretty soft only one I've ever dished. *BUT* I can use that stone to reprofile my axe because it's so fast. Each one a different tool for a different purpose. My Les lat is akin to a fine/ soft washita or turkey stone. You know it's going to wear but it melts steel so who cares, I'll buy another. I do plan on getting another newly mined les lat because I like it so much, but I wouldn't hunt down an old one, even though I mostly use old ones. I've yet to see more than 5 whetstones, in my limited experience, that I couldn't find a use for.
Old Rock Coticule vs La Veinette
- Thread starter JPO
- Start date
The ratings in the old books are mostly rubbish. Those stones were also never sold with slurry stones, mind you. So if you have a painstakingly slow on water, but a super finisher, it would easily get called an inferior stone, because you had no way of speeding things up with slurry.
Aside from the La Veinette, I disagree a lot with the ratings the old books gave different veins.
The best, but mostly slow, finishers mostly got rated as inferior stones, I always lol when I see that.
La Nouvelle veine always gets called an inferior stone in the older books I've read, for example.
The best ever finishers I have are La Grosse Blanches. I have 3 different old books about Coticules, but can't recall how they rated that layer, but they're the smoothest most skin friendly Coticules I have, easily. And for me the best of them all for razor finishing.
Nonetheless, modernly mined La Veinettes can be just as good, better or worse than those mined in the older days. It's more up-to the individual stone rather than the vein, these veins are pretty large and were formed millions of years ago.
So, certainly not inferior or superior to the old rocks, all these rock were formed so long ago, it doesn't matter when they get mined. Being more picky about clean, nice parts in that layer most certainly matters. But for La Veinette all the good stuff is still there. LPB is getting hard, a lot of cracks in that vein; and the first 3 layers, including LGB, are pretty much depleted and gone forever. La Grosse Jaune has recently been mined and were available again in limited quantity.
La Nouvelle Veine is so far away, they won't mine it anytime soon and has not been mined for a decade or even longer. There is way too much other rock before they can access it they need to get rid off and find a buyer for, there is no chance anytime soon they'll get mined again.
I have 10 different modernly mined La Veinette stones, 3 specially selected from a "harder" part of the layer and the others ones are from a softer part, but they're on par quality wise. They look a bit different. The hard ones are exactly Old Rocks look-a-likes and have super-clean even surfaces, like kosher coticules, but with manganese lines.
Just read: Scroll to Vintage Coticules on p40 pretty much says it all.
Aside from the La Veinette, I disagree a lot with the ratings the old books gave different veins.
The best, but mostly slow, finishers mostly got rated as inferior stones, I always lol when I see that.
La Nouvelle veine always gets called an inferior stone in the older books I've read, for example.
The best ever finishers I have are La Grosse Blanches. I have 3 different old books about Coticules, but can't recall how they rated that layer, but they're the smoothest most skin friendly Coticules I have, easily. And for me the best of them all for razor finishing.
Nonetheless, modernly mined La Veinettes can be just as good, better or worse than those mined in the older days. It's more up-to the individual stone rather than the vein, these veins are pretty large and were formed millions of years ago.
So, certainly not inferior or superior to the old rocks, all these rock were formed so long ago, it doesn't matter when they get mined. Being more picky about clean, nice parts in that layer most certainly matters. But for La Veinette all the good stuff is still there. LPB is getting hard, a lot of cracks in that vein; and the first 3 layers, including LGB, are pretty much depleted and gone forever. La Grosse Jaune has recently been mined and were available again in limited quantity.
La Nouvelle Veine is so far away, they won't mine it anytime soon and has not been mined for a decade or even longer. There is way too much other rock before they can access it they need to get rid off and find a buyer for, there is no chance anytime soon they'll get mined again.
I have 10 different modernly mined La Veinette stones, 3 specially selected from a "harder" part of the layer and the others ones are from a softer part, but they're on par quality wise. They look a bit different. The hard ones are exactly Old Rocks look-a-likes and have super-clean even surfaces, like kosher coticules, but with manganese lines.
Just read: Scroll to Vintage Coticules on p40 pretty much says it all.
Last edited:
It's a big long strip of rock and (I may be wrong here) accessed from multiple mines/entry points... so may in fact be multiple distinct veins that are similar enough they consider it one vein.
With that in mind. It is possible.
That said; La Veinette is not as consistent as people give it credit for. It's just inconsistent, but typically quite good. I've had very fast, easy to use, but not ultra fine ones; and I've had ones that were slow (fast for their refinement) but much finer than typical. They tend to have a similar feel, even when their speed and refinement are quite spread. So... the probability that the older rocks would typically represent more of the slower/finer ones... as those would be used more exclusively with razors and other less wear inducing tools makes for a kind of natural selection to drive the vintage ones more towards the LV's I prefer, while not necessarily better... even if they are from the same vein... and even if they were the same mix when origionally sold as Ardennes is getting now.
All in all, I've owned a dozen or so Ardennes rocks, including a couple LV's... and a few hundred Vintage... and I just tend to lean vintage because A: Veins that Ardennes doesn't hit include some of my favorites. and B: feels like a lot of the softer/autoslurrier/less refined Vintage stones got used up by tool honers creating a "survival of the finest" situation with Coticules... where only rare examples tend to break the rule... (Coarse 10x2's that were near NOS when I got them and a couple rarer (but not well reputed/famous) boxed examples that were mediocre that I suspect got forgotten in a drawer and only survived because of the hard box)... Outside of those; I've found random vintage stones to be on par with Modern La Veinettes; and once you start targeting stones by looks or suspected veins within the vintage stones... you start to get some really exceptional rocks.
To add color to David's Jnat comparison for those who haven't experienced it. I've got a <1" thick Jnat that I bought as an antique plane/carpenters hone from an eBay listing that said "Japanese Carpenters Estate/Collection" because it LOOKED like a nice soft y/g or L/g escher and at the time I didn't know anything (somehow even less than now) about Jnats... and I figured hey if it LOOKS like escher, maybe it works like escher... so I threw a bid I felt sure would get beaten at it... it was over 8x3, in an old paddle, looked nice, no obvious damage, etc. Wound up winning.
Got here and had some splitting I had missed; so already off to a bad start. Sealed it up as best I could, which meant prying it out of the box.
Was a great hone... but a prefinisher. Say maybe 7000 JIS equivelent? Around where you CAN shave, and it's not painful, but it's not especially close and you just feel let down after.
Anyway; lived with it for a year or three... Used it here and there, but not much... eventually tried to sell it but got no nibbles anywhere near what I paid, and as I feel it's a good stone I got a good price on, I didn't want to take much of a hit. Considered PIFing it to someone wanting a plane hone or JNAT in that range for something else; but eventually decided; heck it's not worth selling anyway... I'm taking the skin off and seeing what that side is like.
And it's a finisher. Easily 10k JIS equivelent; maybe 11-12k. Not my finest Jnat, but well into a capable daily shaver with no complaints. And these sides are less than an inch apart. Maybe the slightest color/shade difference; but otherwise it's the same rock.
Last edited:
@ArtVandelay123 Have you heard of a stone called Brackett's Brazilian Hone? And what do you think of the coticule slurry stone that comes with this stone?
The super hard old rock stones where particularly prized and sold to barber schools. People fail to understand we prize different stones types now then where prized back then. They didn't use slurry stones because the barbers were given theses stones upon graduation and the razors never got dull. They just did touch ups all day. So not only did they give a super sharp coticule edge. They didn't wear like a softer stone either. I find them excellent for just this type of work, but also pair one with a softer slurry stone and it is blazing fast, which a lot of those old hard ones are blazing fast without slurry.
Also stones from the same layers at different locations have different depths and thus the pressures these stones were subjected to will be different and this will change the properties of the stones some. Even within the same layer at the same mine which is why you can have variety in these a lot too.
So the Old rock stones La Veinette where usually hard stones not so on the more modern ones from Old Peru. Also those were considerd in the G&H pt4 the best because of how easy they are to use. LPB is I agree one of the best for razor edges, but also one of the most difficult stones to figure out to get that edge. This was even said by Bart on the old Coticule site.
La Veinette is the simplest layer to obtain a perfect cut.
If the BBW is defective, it gets glued on a slate.
La Veinette is eminently the best layer of the Ol'Preu
quarry. The stone is very soft and grinds simultaneously
extremely fast and fine! The slurry has a creamy yellow
color and is mainly a combination stone. Do not use thick
slurry but stay with a milky. Dilute the slurry occasionally
with a finger dipped in water. This works fine. La Veinette
is the best stone for razors and blades
Also there were two stones from Old Rock that were similar
There are but a few layers that make this colour: the
legendary Vieille Roche - Old Rock from the mine and the
company with the same name.
A second which can also provide a pale white colour is the
La Veinette layer often renamed Old Rock.
The white and pale stones were stones of the highest class.
The pale colour is characteristic of Old Rock
Also with Deep Rock mine the stones are usually harder and finer because they were deeper layers.
I enjoy the crazy hard really fast stones though.
Why would deeper layers be harder and finer? I can't speak for that mine.
But at the Ol Preu mine isn't the Veine Aux Clous a deeper layer but incredibly soft?
Many collectors and users still seem to hunt exactly those.
I do feel a sentiment the was a bit higher QC or selectiveness back in the day, also more time was spent on finishing the Coticule surface, which is telling me something.
I'm aware. You just miss out on a lot of versatility with these stones without a slurry stone.
Ergo faster stones were usually the more prized ones, along with more kosher looking stones rather than the ones with patterns.
Not all of em, but they are certainly there. However you cannot compare a vein from a different mine with another.
The vein naming was not a commercial thing and only done among workers, never was it ever commercially done until recently.
What they call LV from the old rock mine will certainly not be the same as the LV from Ol Preu. They can be similar though. But the name calling of veins is arbitrary between mines.
True. But get a good quality one that is apt for razor honing and the end-results will be very similar, ime.
Many people say that, and out of the ones still being mined, they could very well be, but many other veins are equally as good from Ol Preu.
Maybe not as easy or user friendly. Depends what "best" means, but LV do give consistently good stones within the layer.
Very true, too thick of slurry does more harm than good.
I used to as well, until I got some softer LGB, they're fast on water, which is not something that is usually documented, they've always been described as slow to very slow on water. Odd. I also have come to prefer faster stones though. Though my very slow La Grises give outstanding edges, very easy to max out the keenness too. In the old books La Grise was always named an inferior stone for razor honing, not coincidentally a slower stone again.
Of all the labelled modernly mined stones that I bought from AC, asking particular ones for razor honing, they were all good and well selected tbh. And that's the same for the Old Rock stones, I can't tell one is better than the other, but one will suit your preferences more, which is mostly what it's all about for different users. A good finisher with certain characteristics. Fast/slow, hard/soft, mellow/crisp, etc.
Unlabelled ones, vintage or modernly mined, has been a big guessing game. Some were good, others not so much for razors.
They're not bad stones, just not for finishing razors.
So indeed, they're all individual pieces of rock with a lot of variety and there's only one way to find out how they work for you.
But I guess the ones that were specially selected and labelled should be good ones, same with thuringers and the Escher label, so I understand people will want a labelled Old Rock or a labelled Escher, it's guaranteed quality.
But ask Ardennes for a similar stone and you'll get a perfect substitute and equally good stone, ime.
So if you want something similar to Old Rock, ask a for a hard LV or a LPB.
Last edited:
So heat and pressure create harder more compact particles. Just like a diamond. So deeper usually means harder finer. Same in the Jnat world, but not always.
Some of that is not my thoughts, but taken directly from Grinding and Honing pt 4. The info on the La Veinette from Old'Preu and the two types from Old Rock is from G&H.
My easiest stones to finish on are my La Verte, Really hard Old Rock and other similary hard stones. They are just easier to finish to a high keen yet coticule smooth edge. I have many of the other veins or used them in the past and I have yet to find a coticule I can't get a great shave from. Some are just more time consuming and trickier to figure out and get there. I like them all though.
Ditto. I've tried all the veins that are still available from the Ol Preu mine, I have my favourites, but really like them all.
The differences between the different veins is mostly splitting hairs once you have your stone figured out and get the max out of them.
I do prefer my LGB for its amazingly smooth finishing capabilities. But my others all follow very closely.
Mastering honing on Coticules is what really mattered, including working with slurry. The end results are always amazing.
The other thing that did a lot for me was finding out what grind of razor I liked best, that changed the game completely.
Going from wedges and near wedges to more hollow grinds, I was a bit amazed how easily hollow grinds hone up and how smoothly they shave. I love my German full hollow and extra hollow razors paired with a Coticule immensely.
I try to keep the RAD in check, but I'm always told the Sheffield steel razors take an awesome Coticule edge, but I have not yet tried, alas!
A full hollow grind German steel on coticule is my favorite too. Something about it.
Actually, from the maps I've seen, the veins are like big zigzags or waves, due to the way the geology and rocks have moved and shifted over millions of years. Not that it makes any difference to your point.
There has always been way too much fuss over Coticule vein names.
A good stone is a good stone regardless of the vein. And not everyone gets along with every stone, regardless of the vein. So it really doesn't matter much.
Most of the generalizations about Coti veins I've read over the years have not proven to be all that accurate in my experience.
FWIW, I think a good number of Old Rock and Deep Rock stones were from La Viennete.
I remember reading that somewhere. I never cared though. A few that I owned were 'possibly' La V but there really was no way to verify that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I've had a bunch of Old Rock, Deep Rock,- boxed labeled, etc. Never found them to be 'better' in any quantifiable way. No, they weren't harder, pretty sure they weren't older either.
So far as veins are concerned, I remember certain 'types' of stone from certain veins. For example, if I come across a very hard La Verte I'd be happy. But some La Verte are soft and very much like La Grise. If I find a stripey Dressante I'll take a look but not all striped Dressante scratch that itch the same way. Even hybrid Les Lat - a number of the more recently quarried examples do not compare well to some I've owned in the past... or the one I have now.
A lot of the vein/name rhetoric is more like Broscience than anything else.
Having a name for a stone is fun, the geology is interesting, the maps of the mines and the location of the layers are intriguing. At the end of the day though, I have stone preferences that can be and have been met by examples from many veins.
A good stone is a good stone regardless of the vein. And not everyone gets along with every stone, regardless of the vein. So it really doesn't matter much.
Most of the generalizations about Coti veins I've read over the years have not proven to be all that accurate in my experience.
FWIW, I think a good number of Old Rock and Deep Rock stones were from La Viennete.
I remember reading that somewhere. I never cared though. A few that I owned were 'possibly' La V but there really was no way to verify that beyond a shadow of a doubt. I've had a bunch of Old Rock, Deep Rock,- boxed labeled, etc. Never found them to be 'better' in any quantifiable way. No, they weren't harder, pretty sure they weren't older either.
So far as veins are concerned, I remember certain 'types' of stone from certain veins. For example, if I come across a very hard La Verte I'd be happy. But some La Verte are soft and very much like La Grise. If I find a stripey Dressante I'll take a look but not all striped Dressante scratch that itch the same way. Even hybrid Les Lat - a number of the more recently quarried examples do not compare well to some I've owned in the past... or the one I have now.
A lot of the vein/name rhetoric is more like Broscience than anything else.
Having a name for a stone is fun, the geology is interesting, the maps of the mines and the location of the layers are intriguing. At the end of the day though, I have stone preferences that can be and have been met by examples from many veins.
Dumb version... if it looks hard, old and brown... it's probably a pretty fine coti. That's been the short version of the coti's I keep my eyes open for, for years.
That French guy who sells all the vintage cotis and la lunes, always with a french razor in the pics for scale tends to get a good amount of these coti's, but his shipping costs are pretty brutal; so generally I leave them for others.
Of course these are not La Veinettes... I usually don't bother with anything vintage that looks LV... same with anything dalmation spotted or with lots of manganese veins... Prices get out of hand on those rocks fast... might throw one bid at it just to put it in my history so I can check in later and see what it sold for.
Like Gamma says; you can't know ABSOLUTELY if anything vintage is LV. I've got hybrids that from a B&W picture you'd say are 100% Les Lat... but they are brown. Maybe some odd section of Les Lat? Maybe some entirely different vein that is all brown. Who knows. Best I've done is discover that it's the natural backing on some glued "Old Rock" and a "Perfection" boxed coti I owned under the yellow layer. So evidently they're from one of the layers that was sold as Old Rock. Was one of the les lat yellow sides sold as old rock? I don't know. Maybe. I call em brown hybrids. I'll call some vintages I owned La Veinettes because they show all the signs of LV's, but as I mentioned; LV's aren't a monolith, and in general I'd say the vintages I credited as being LV's were superior on average to the modern LV's I used. The one 10" boxed Microtome stone I sold to the collector in Israel, I miss every day. That stone was a gem. I thought at the time that if I asked any more for it I'd be ripping the guy off... That stone would probably fetch 3x what I sold it to him for these days. Damn I miss it. And that's not even my favorite... but it would be the largest top tier coti I'd own. Now can I say absolutely, 100% it's La Veinette? No, but I can say anyone wanting a La Veinette would be freaking lucky to get a stone that good.
And @Legion Thanks, I worded it poorly. I was visualizing a line rolling and curling into itself just like you describe, but brain to fingers lost that translation.
That French guy who sells all the vintage cotis and la lunes, always with a french razor in the pics for scale tends to get a good amount of these coti's, but his shipping costs are pretty brutal; so generally I leave them for others.
Of course these are not La Veinettes... I usually don't bother with anything vintage that looks LV... same with anything dalmation spotted or with lots of manganese veins... Prices get out of hand on those rocks fast... might throw one bid at it just to put it in my history so I can check in later and see what it sold for.
Like Gamma says; you can't know ABSOLUTELY if anything vintage is LV. I've got hybrids that from a B&W picture you'd say are 100% Les Lat... but they are brown. Maybe some odd section of Les Lat? Maybe some entirely different vein that is all brown. Who knows. Best I've done is discover that it's the natural backing on some glued "Old Rock" and a "Perfection" boxed coti I owned under the yellow layer. So evidently they're from one of the layers that was sold as Old Rock. Was one of the les lat yellow sides sold as old rock? I don't know. Maybe. I call em brown hybrids. I'll call some vintages I owned La Veinettes because they show all the signs of LV's, but as I mentioned; LV's aren't a monolith, and in general I'd say the vintages I credited as being LV's were superior on average to the modern LV's I used. The one 10" boxed Microtome stone I sold to the collector in Israel, I miss every day. That stone was a gem. I thought at the time that if I asked any more for it I'd be ripping the guy off... That stone would probably fetch 3x what I sold it to him for these days. Damn I miss it. And that's not even my favorite... but it would be the largest top tier coti I'd own. Now can I say absolutely, 100% it's La Veinette? No, but I can say anyone wanting a La Veinette would be freaking lucky to get a stone that good.
And @Legion Thanks, I worded it poorly. I was visualizing a line rolling and curling into itself just like you describe, but brain to fingers lost that translation.
I have had a bunch of different material with old rock labeling, but when I think of the specific type of material I equate with it it is this tan stuff
How big are those? I recently got a 160x30 (I think) that looks like that on the surface with the speckles. It's strawberry blonde and the bbw is even finer. It's nice, but I haven't shaved off it. The yellow(ish) side is pretty quick but leaning toward medium in speed but it's one of 2 coticules I've owned that leave teeth on the edge. It's amazing for knives.
The hateful 4x2
You kill me with that brother, I love your hatred of small stones(hit me up before you post them) but is it exactly that or a little under? Were some a little under? The best whetstone I have is a little under that, it's a coticule, and it's magic on anything and it's perfect size for an axe.
I've always been curious about this.
Sometimes the 4x2 were under or wider kind of the way pike or Norton fudged it with arks..
Just remembered that I had this conversation a lot with bart and others, coming back to a previous point;
in Coticules hardness does not correlate in any way with fineness of the stone, meaning harder stones don't mean finer stones, necessarily.
I don't want to generalise but I experience my harder stones to give a tad sharper edge in comparison with my softer stones, but my softer stones leave generally a tad smoother edge. But all my Cotis give sharp and smooth edges.
YMMV.
in Coticules hardness does not correlate in any way with fineness of the stone, meaning harder stones don't mean finer stones, necessarily.
I don't want to generalise but I experience my harder stones to give a tad sharper edge in comparison with my softer stones, but my softer stones leave generally a tad smoother edge. But all my Cotis give sharp and smooth edges.
YMMV.
You are correct in some ways. It has a lot to do with garnet size and amount too. harder does have advantages leaning towards finer though.
