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Won an old rock!

mrmaroon

Well-Known Member
I won this hone on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...976427&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_500wt_1154 I figured it would go for an astronimical price, considering a member of SRP sold two old rock hones for 250$ a pop. I wish I never sold my old Barbers' Special and bought this one looking for a replacement. I know a true replacement is never possible, but I can still hope! At 56 dollars, I would say I didn't do to bad! Bidders must have thought there was a crack in it?

regards
 
Looks perfectly serviceable to me. I totally dig how the bbw/coticule intersection curves at that the supposed "crack".

From what I was told, The Old Rock company only sold particular Coticule layers under their main brand name. It is probably a fast stone.

You have a 6th sense for good deals!:thumbup:

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
So let me get this straight. Old Rock is a brand name of course, but is it also a grade of hone from that company? I posted a picture of some old layer prices back in my barbers' Special thread. It said that Old Rock, Deep Rock, and Barbers' Special were the three most expensive. I assume that old rock isn't a particular layer, because I have seen two that were veinettes, but the one smythe and I already own are far different from that. So it must be any layer that has certain attributes.

I think my barbers' special was a veinette as well. It cut a lot like yours used in OTB. However, it was much softer and a little more aggressive. I can't wait to get ny new one and test it out!

Regards,
MrMaroon
 
Are you ready to be confused? B)

OLD ROCK =

-a company name
-the name of a mine
-the name of a vein
-a brand

The Old Rock company sold the Old Rock brand, but they sold other brands as well. The "Old Rock" coticules did not exclusively come from the Old Rock vein, and not all hones coming from the Old Rock vein were sold under the Old Rock brand. The "Old Rock" coticules did not even exclusively come from the "Old Rock mine", as the company obtained raw rocks from other mining companies as well.

I think the best way to understand it, is to compare it with a tomato farm. You grow tomatoes, and when harvested, you end up with whole bunch of tomatoes, both sorted by size, uniformity, firmness, etc. 25 years ago, I did student jobs at Europe's largest clock auction for vegetables. We had over a dozen of different tomato classes, by the way: none of them having any relevance to how they tasted. The way they were distributed, by the time the tomatoes reached the consumer, it was impossible to tell their origin.

The Old Rock company was the largest Coticule manufacture, they turned raw Coticule rock into hones. These hones were triaged and labeled after production. Their highest grade was sold with the Old Rock label. The company was owned by the Offergeld family (a name of Jewish origin). To this day, they still own the mine and brand name. Everything I've read and heard, suggests that they had a fine nose for business opportunities and marketing. Some 10 years ago, Maurice Celis, owner of Ardennes Coticule, negotiated with them to reopen the Old Rock mine. They could not reach a financial agreement, that Maurice found feasible. Otherwise, Ardennes might have continued the Old Rock brand.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Very interesting. You really know your stuff Bart! I was wondering if you were ever going to continue the translation of that coticule book in the heritage? I was interested in reading the different layer/names, but all that was translated was la veinette. I'm not saying "get on it now Bart!". But I don't want you to forget about it ;)

Thanks for the resource,
Caleb
 
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