Original Thuringian Waterhones

Vintage thuringian hones

Thuringian waterhones are well known for honing straight razors for more than 200 years. The most known name in connection with these hones is the company Escher, which was a trading company, existing from the late 18th century till the mid of 20th century. The Escher company exported the thuringian razor hones with their label all around the world, mainly to the United States.

All original vintage thuringian hones including all Escher labeled hones have been mined in the area of Sonneberg/ Steinach in the Thuringian mountains by small whetstone mining companies.

The hones themselves are slates and the quarries consist of several hundred different slate layers. The whetstone layers that were finally considered as best were devided into the different qualities:

 yellow green – light green – blue green and (dark) blue.

All stones you will find at the following pages are original vintage hones, mostly cut by the original miners/distributers in the years between approx. 1800 and 1950.

Most of the whetstones are so-called bout stones, cut ends or leftovers from the original mined stones. Stones with irregular form, benchstones that could not be sold as perfect sized and quality benchstones in the past because of defects on the backside or small chips or crack lines on the sides. Sometimes also only thin layersare found.

Some of the stones vary in thickness more or less, means they do not lay totally flat on a the table for honing, the working surface and the backside is not always parallel.

The hones are natural stones, so little hairline cracks or small outbreaks on the hone sides or back could appear.


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Thuringian Hone yellow green - blue combination hone

Product no.: TH_1548

54.90 **
In stock

Large Thuringian Hone blue-green cloudy

Product no.: TH_1549

135.80 **
In stock

Thuringian Hone yellow green - blue combination hone

Product no.: TH_1557

142.80 **
Old price 169.90 €
In stock

Thuringian Hone blue

Product no.: TH_1564

82.90 **
In stock

Thuringian Hone blue

Product no.: TH_1561b

29.90 **
In stock

Thuringian Hone lightgreen

Product no.: TH_1568

98.50 **
In stock

Thuringian Hone blue-green

Product no.: TH_1569

159.50 **
In stock

Thuringian Hone lightgreen

Product no.: TH_1570

59.90 **
In stock
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incl. local taxes, (where applicable), plus shipping
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incl. local taxes (where applicable), plus shipping