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With what would you hone in 1850?

I was trying to see what the stone was in GW's kit. Coticule maybe?
I thought that it a charnwood. They hadn't got control of Arkansas so I'd guess it would either be European (and something popular at the time) or the New York and Vermont slate that was commonly used as building materials. We must not forget that whetstone(especially natural razor hone) were usually an of shot of another industry be it chalkboards, paving stones, billiard tables, ect. I suspect that the grind stone companies that began selling razor hones out of the same quarries that they pulled grind stone from and either the layer or random inclusion of a more rare mineral was to slow or fine for grindstone and it was alternatively marketed. It's a tale as old as time. In most societies(especially throughout the past) priority on tools usually went to the men building things and those men needed sharp tools to make work move. Generally these laborious were the same men finding and pulling the dang rocks out of the ground. I know most blue collar types generally wear beards to some degree, at least most of my life, especially people who are miners or some similarly dangerous job where shaving just does not matter when you might die. I could see them prioritizing the folks THEY need to continue building and expanding and getting paid VS those who like to look neat. While I was daydreaming this scenario I can see many way of how razor hone business was just the scraps they were using to keep in the black.
 
Here's a photo of the kit, from the museum at Mt. Vernon.
DI-0312-1 W-1598 A,C-G.jpeg
 
Im sure I posted pictures here, but that was 10+ yrs ago. Google search isn't helping much.

Google green marble. Image those slabs without the white streaks/veining and that's what it looked like.


Take this marble, remove all the white, but leave the varying shades of green.


I've actually had it twice. The first time was like 2010. Had one cut ~5x2.5x1". Bought it hoping it was an escher, wasn't impressed; and resold shortly after, and that was the shocker you remember me mentioning... It went for $100+ from a $1 no reserve sale.

Second one was the one I got in a barbers kit, a couple years later and was 50x50x25mm if I remember with a very odd rubbing stone, same material but roughly the size of a Frictionite 00 rubber (like 1.5"x.75"x1/4") and perfectly rounded on one side (like it was a piece of a column that had been shaved off), and perfectly flat on the other. The main stone had DEEP gouges/teeth on the sides, like it was carved out with a needle, but regular so I'm assuming from some kind of very aggressive saw. The sides were practically zipper teeth.

This barber's kit had a bunch of "demo" stones like that. Tiny coticules, a miniature swaty-type (complete in a custom labeled box with a 1c stamp on it), other stuff. Almost like the guy had gotten samples from various hones available and just kept and used those.

I've seen the same material once other than those two stones. Some collector out of Israel had an online sharpening stone "museum" site for both vintage stones and stones that he foraged in various locations in the middle east that I've long since lost the address of, but I suspect no longer exists. He had one of those rocks and called it a Cutlers Green.
 
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Im sure I posted pictures here, but that was 10+ yrs ago. Google search isn't helping much.

Google green marble. Image those slabs without the white streaks/veining and that's what it looked like.


Take this marble, remove all the white, but leave the varying shades of green.


I've actually had it twice. The first time was like 2010. Had one cut ~5x2.5x1". Bought it hoping it was an escher, wasn't impressed; and resold shortly after, and that was the shocker you remember me mentioning... It went for $100+ from a $1 no reserve sale.

Second one was the one I got in a barbers kit, a couple years later and was 50x50x25mm if I remember with a very odd rubbing stone, same material but roughly the size of a Frictionite 00 rubber (like 1.5"x.75"x1/4") and perfectly rounded on one side (like it was a piece of a column that had been shaved off), and perfectly flat on the other. The main stone had DEEP gouges/teeth on the sides, like it was carved out with a needle, but regular so I'm assuming from some kind of very aggressive saw. The sides were practically zipper teeth.

This barber's kit had a bunch of "demo" stones like that. Tiny coticules, a miniature swaty-type (complete in a custom labeled box with a 1c stamp on it), other stuff. Almost like the guy had gotten samples from various hones available and just kept and used those.

I've seen the same material once other than those two stones. Some collector out of Israel had an online sharpening stone "museum" site for both vintage stones and stones that he foraged in various locations in the middle east that I've long since lost the address of, but I suspect no longer exists. He had one of those rocks and called it a Cutlers Green.


Ah yeah that sound like quite a singular type of stone. And certainly matches the few old descriptions there are of CGs very closely.
 
This Russian site seems to think the CG is a form of LI.

I don't know. I wouldn't discount any theory out there but Richard Knight's letter didn't say it as a type of LI.
I have read someplace describing the CG as having some blue in them. Can't remember where...
 
9E336F6C-CAEF-4A6C-A8CD-1750B20DB827.jpeg

Buy local! Or at least, pick up a rock. Fine, hard finishers are, I expect, much easier to source locally than the slightly coarser, faster cutting stones that are suited to initial razor honing or blade repair.

This creek runs north off of Mount Baker in Washington state. It is a tributary of Bagley Creek which in turn runs into the North Fork Nooksack. I don't know whether a commercial hone was quarried here.
 
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Buy local! Or at least, pick up a rock. Fine, hard finishers are, I expect, much easier to source locally than the slightly coarser, faster cutting stones that are suited to initial razor honing or blade repair.

This creek runs north off of Mount Baker in Washington state. It is a tributary of Bagley Creek which in turn runs into the North Fork Nooksack. I don't know whether a commercial hone was quarried here.
Might want to wait for the snow to melt.
 
Thank You for all the replies! I'll need to digest it slowly as there a many terms i need to research (like Novaculite). Luckily my wife is a geologist so I can pester her a bit in that regard :D
 
In the US, George Chase was marketing Arkansas stones in 1840s, whether or not an individual would have access to them would depend on location, and their wallet. I would guess that the majority were not honing their own.
There were a lot of 'local' sharpening stones sold, like Labrador and Chocolate hones. Slates were commonly employed to sharpen things. A lot of Coticules and Eschers were imported. I doubt many Toms, Dicks, or Harry's had an Escher though. Maybe the grinder or the barber did. Maybe I wouldn't even own my own razor in 1850...times were different. abrasive compounds prob saw a lot of action.
 
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