Pierre Du Sud Ouest Love Show off your Rocks. (AKA Mystery Swirled hone)

[SliceOfLife]

David snagged this one for me.

~7.5x1 3/4"

In the very typical old paddle.

Pretty petrified leaves pattern. Had one of the broad stripes when he sent it to me, but that went away fast when I lapped it (didn't go deep)... does prove that the various pattern all appear kind of running into each other, rather than from different veins like with coticules.


Haven't used it yet but feels right in the middle for hardness and fineness. Should be nice. Gonna shave off it today.


Edit: definitely slower/finer than the average... doesn't really touch a finished razor. Did 20 passes and zero noticeable swarf when I wiped the blade. Should be a good one.

 

[lloydw]

I am not familiar with these stones myself but I do lovethe look of them from this thread. Amazing characteristics

 

[RobbyC]

I’ve had a few over the years and have sold all of them on, picked this one up a while back.
This is a super super soft one, softer than all but one of my Thuris (a stone that is equally as yellow as this)
Was a real pain to lap on the plate as it would near instantly clog up, also has the strong smell that most of the ones I have owned have had.

Has the fossil inclusions that often appear, can see the layers of them in the side picture.
This is the softest one I’ve had and it is a really silky stone to use, very much comparable to a soft thuringian stone and gives a terrific edge.

 

[Toro Blanco]

Here is my example, it's 223×47×14. Like Slice said I thought it was a dirty Coti but was happy it was PDSO. I had been looking for one just to have in the collection.

 

[alex1921]

I picked one a while ago. Never really used it but why not have one right?

 

[LJS]

What all color variations of these are there? What are the signature characteristics for identification? I have a stone from Fr that was in a paddle with leather sheath but didn’t really suspect PSO before. Went and dug it out to see what you think. It was more convexed when first received. Don’t recall it being named anything, so was always a semi-mystery:

 

[SliceOfLife]

Possibly one, but looks a little hard, I'd lean more towards grecian/lynn id on that stone. I've had a few stones along those lines too and they didn't turn out to be PDSO (can tell via use). It's definitely possible that's an unusually hard example (I've got a couple of those), but only way to be sure is in use. Lynn Id's and similar hones don't act anything like PDSO's and Thuri's do.

I will say, that kind of "torn" pattern is found on some of my hard ones if memory serves. I'll try and find it.

Colors? Everything from Yellow, green, orange, pinkish, green blue, even some light tans

What gives them away is how they behave. Blindfolded you'd never tell one apart from a Y/G Thuri. Paddles are a big clue too, but not 100% (the paddle on yours is a good match, but like I said, I doubt that's a PDSO). Another big indicator is the cuts/gouges on the sides.

The biggest clue for me though is that these LOOK from the side crazy hard but on top both look and act crazy soft:

The cuts on the sides LOOK like what you see on Ultrahard coticules... but as soon as you put these on a DMT to lap, you can tell they aren't hard at all. As someone just mentioned... they MELT when lapping, clog up the plate if you don't keep it rinsed almost immediately.


Below are some pictures of what the surfaces wear to (on sides, backs, etc). Contrast that with the "open" surfaces that you hone on. Very light and soft honing surface, dark, hard, almost glassy sides and backs.

I suspect that's because they are so tight-grained... any grease/grit/oil from the paddle/etc that rubs onto the surface just adheres there and forms this natural shellac.

 

[LJS]

Thanks Slice. LI was my closest guess in the past from just looks. Really don’t recall how it performed but may play with it now. I was not thinking PSO before anyway....but your thread had me wondering. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t know it if I had one. You mentioned sides and I forgot those before.

 

[LJS]

I want to say I thought it was a paddle charn when I got it due to being shiny. Not a charn once I got it and LI is what I began to think. But I recall it being convexed and shiny not dishes or dull.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Here's the closest pattern I can find to yours LJS, and it is on a very hard example:


The sides on yours look a bit too gritty... almost like granite to my eyes. It actually reminds of a paddle stone I sold recently and described as reminding me of a piece of granite. Also was in a PDSO-like paddle, Also had a hole drilled through it.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Here's the stone yours reminds me of.

Considered it might be a PDSO when I bought it because of the paddle, and it finished well... but it didn't feel like one at all. Quite similar to Lynn Idwal, but not enough that I was confident it was one of those either.

This was how I described it when I sold it:
"Very, very, very hard stone.

Possibly an extremely hard grecian/lynn idwal type? Mystery stone."

 

[LJS]

Agree - thanks for posting those and the replies!

 

[cotedupy]

I just received an ebay stone, which I looked at the pictures of for a long time before buying, but it was a pittance so I rolled the dice. Having received it and lapped I'm still none the wiser to be honest. It has me going in a lot of different directions; could be a Thuri, Coti, Jnat, Idwal, but I think I'm leaning toward PDSO...

The stone is hard, very fine, and a good size at 175 x 65 x 20 mmm. It came from someone who purchased it from a carpenter about 10 years ago, who in turn had had it since he was an apprentice. The stone is at least 70 years old, probably more.

My initial impression is that it looks like an Idwal. Here's the back when I received:

But it doesn't really lap like an Idwal. Although it's very hard it doesn't feel like novaculite; it feels like very hard shale or slate. The slurry isn't quite as bright white as novaculite, it's more the same kind of very light grey-green of the rest of the stone. Smells chalky and vegetal. It also has layers on the sides:

Surface of the stone is very smooth, but visually it has some black bits in it, and a kinda pink/orange cloud-like effect on parts, these two pictures show it wet:

And here's a picture of it dry in between two small Idwals. The white balance is probably a bit out in this picture, but not by much. The stone is quite a bright, light, grey-green, but not as blue as the below suggests:

Under a scope this doesn't look like an Idwal, at least not my Idwals, and doesn't feel much like them in use either. What it reminds me of most is a Jnat; it feels absolutely glorious, silken, and just lovely. It's very fine - happily north of 10k, but cuts Shirogami and Aogami steels surprisingly well for the grit level. This is a very, very good stone.

So what do we reckon: PDSO, Idwal, Jnat, or something else...?

 

[cotedupy]

Yeah, and I even got competition. One guy threw a bid at it, drove me up about $10 over starting bid if I recall. Which was a surprise.

The latest acquisition just arrived. Another UK find (seems they're found in UK almost as often as France... brought over after the war maybe... doesn't seem to ever have been a stone that was commercially exploited (old paddles, raw cuts, no labels)). Same dimensions on top as the last one (ties for my biggest surface area), and at almost 50% thicker, my new biggest Pierre. It also shows what happens when whatever geomorphic event that swirled my "mystery swirled hones" doesn't affect one.

Like most of them, it felt like I was fighting "Coticule" bids on it. The pictures weren't as clear as could be, so I only wound up paying about 50-70% of coti price for it (I suppose my competition wasn't 100% certain it was a coti and so reduced their bids), so I got it for a very fair price.


Also like 12/13 of these stones (the 13 that arrived unlapped) have demonstrated, it was noticeably high in the center suggesting only light use and only razor and other fine tool use.

As for fineness: I rank them right there with my Thuri's. I definitely have Jnats that are finer. Still one of the best shaves I get, and I haven't found a razor that doesn't work well with them (like Thuri's). I remember seeing grit estimates in the 10k-15k range... and I mean... that could be right? I wouldn't say they're finer than my 13k SP, but they are a LOT finer than some of the barbers hones I've seen reviewed to "improve on or not degrade a 15k edge". Past 8k, grit rating becomes kind of a guessing game it seems. One mans 8k is another mans 15k. One mans 40k is another mans 10k.

I have a stone that looks, perhaps coincidentally, very similar to this. I had it down as a fine Hindostan though...

 

[SliceOfLife]

Edit: Actually looking closer at the first, may also be a PDSO, but it'd be a variety I've not seen before. Looks really interesting either way. Slurry matches PDSO (but also lots of other stuff), texture looks pretty close, color and pattern would be a new one to me, but there is a LOT of variety in those with PDSO's. Sides are freshly polished... which I don't have much to compare against with PDSO's... usually they've been aging for 1-2 centuries and get a very distinct waxy look to them... but I imagine if I were to lap the sides of a PDSO, that's about what I'd see. Were I to make a guess I'd say not PDSO, but looks like an interesting stone anyway.

Second one 99% is a PDSO... those wavy orange lines are pretty typical on light orange ones. If it's a razor finisher, it's a PDSO. Hindostans best I've seen are maybe 4-6k. If you show me the sides I can be more sure. How big is it? Looks on the large side of things for a PDSO.

Only thing that makes me doubt it is a PDSO are the gouges at the top in pic 2 definitely look more friable than PDSO are (they aren't friable at all), and would match a Hindostan. Pretty sure it's a PDSO tho.

 

[LJS]

As big and squarely cut as they are, I’m surprised. I would have guessed more like vermio on one or maybe jnat on both. I wouldn’t have figured PDSO almost exclusively due to size and shape…..but I have yet to really dial in PDSO identification

 

[SliceOfLife]

Yeah size and cut are off for a PDSO on the second, but the color and pattern are a dead ringer for a couple I've got. Can't be sure till I see the sides though.

Oh and it's not even the one he quoted my post about and ID'ed as looking like his stone. That stone is green. I've got an orange one (maybe two... my stones are all boxed up atm) that literally looks EXACTLY like his stone, without the chip and gouges.

First one, I'd guess maybe a JNat or just another mystery stone before PDSO, but it's not impossible. Cut/shape/size/apparent age/pattern/etc. Lots on that one don't really match PDSO and there's nothing that screams PDSO to me on it the way the pattern/color does on the second one. Looks like a really cool stone, but probably not PDSO.

 

[cotedupy]

Edit: Actually looking closer at the first, may also be a PDSO, but it'd be a variety I've not seen before. Looks really interesting either way. Slurry matches PDSO (but also lots of other stuff), texture looks pretty close, color and pattern would be a new one to me, but there is a LOT of variety in those with PDSO's. Sides are freshly polished... which I don't have much to compare against with PDSO's... usually they've been aging for 1-2 centuries and get a very distinct waxy look to them... but I imagine if I were to lap the sides of a PDSO, that's about what I'd see. Were I to make a guess I'd say not PDSO, but looks like an interesting stone anyway.

Second one 99% is a PDSO... those wavy orange lines are pretty typical on light orange ones. If it's a razor finisher, it's a PDSO. Hindostans best I've seen are maybe 4-6k. If you show me the sides I can be more sure. How big is it? Looks on the large side of things for a PDSO.

Only thing that makes me doubt it is a PDSO are the gouges at the top in pic 2 definitely look more friable than PDSO are (they aren't friable at all), and would match a Hindostan. Pretty sure it's a PDSO tho.

Ah I was hoping you'd notice this post and offer some thoughts, ta!

Here's a shot of the sides of the large one with the orange stripes (It's quite big - 220 x 60 x 28):

I need to use this stone more to get an idea of it - I've been cleaning it up a bit recently. But I suspect it's just a coincidence the way it looks. In this picture you can see the quartz in the surface of the stone, and I assume PDSOs are finer than that...?

@LJS - funnily enough this is the same stone, now having been cleaned, that I posted in the Hindostan thread here: Hindostan Info/Photos/ID Thread - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/hindostan-info-photos-id-thread.479670/post-11369094

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My new one from today sounds like it might remain a mystery then! As you say - it certainly doesn't look spot-on like any of your or others' pics in this thread. It's certainly a lovely stone though, so I'm very happy. I suppose it could be a jnat, I just don't know how many Australian carpenters in the first half of the 20th century would've had them. Maybe they did, who knows!

Don't know if this helps but some other pics of the side and end (wet). I didn't lap the ends much; they still have this hard black stuff on them that I think was used to fix the stone in its holder at some point:

[EDIT - Now that I think about it - it actually almost looked like it'd been sealed round the sides and on the bottom (which I'm now using as the top). The bottom had a kind've hard white layer on it. I assumed it was glue, but maybe some kind of lacquer? Perhaps it is Japanese; the only other stone I have that smells like this is an old Iyo stone, though that's much coarser.]

 

[LJS]

funnily enough this is the same stone, now having been cleaned, that I posted in the Hindostan thread here:

Certainly seems layered and sort of sandy like one. Can you feel the grain of the stone, or is it super smooth?

 

[cotedupy]

Certainly seems layered and sort of sandy like one. Can you feel the grain of the stone, or is it super smooth?

Umm... It feels pretty smooth to me, but I did just lap it yesterday. It actually looks a bit coarser than it feels and acts, though I wouldn't put it much above about 4k.