"oldjag" wrote in message
...

snip


I was driving through Arkansas on vacation a month ago near lake
Wa****a and happened to see a sign for a small company that made
Arkansas sharpening stones. The owner was nice enough to show me some
of the stones he was boxing up for shipment. I told him I was looking
for a replacement for my translucent hard Arkansas stone I had dropped
years ago. He said he happened to have one on hand, which was unusual
since he normally only cuts soft Arkansas. He said the hard stones
required oil cutting and different tooling/saws than the softer stones
which were water cut. Paid $6 bucks for a really nice 2 x 7 x 1
translucent stone, rings like a piece of steel when you tap it. For
such a hard smooth stone it seems to cut fairly quickly and gives a
quick polished edge.
I asked if the hard stone was getting harder to find, and he said he
didn't think so, just the demand for the hard stones was less. (I had
heard the same story that the hard translucent & black stone was
getting harder to find). Looked like he had about 20 tons of raw soft
Arkansas material on hand and the driveway to the shop appeared to be
paved mainly with Arkansas stone chips...

Hmm. I have a theory about things like this. It's a cranky, untested,
unresearched theory, but it's one of my favorites about today's markets.
Hard Arkansas stones fit right into it.

My (patented, copyrighted, trademarked, but free) theory says that people
take their hobbies 'way too seriously today (why that is happens to be
another of my theories, but one theory at a time...), and that hobbies like
woodworking, fly fishing, golf, and so on have gotten so serious for some
people that the high end of the market has no practical limits ($4,000 fly
rods; $200 sharpening stones; $220,000 shotguns -- no ****, I get a magazine
called _The Gun_, a commercial mag from Griffin & Howe, that's full of
them). Furthermore, the high end of these markets *defines* the markets, the
aspirations, and the goals of other people who may pursue the hobbies --
particularly the latest generation of hobbyists. It's screwed up the whole
perspective. I have to admit some small culpability here because Prince
tennis racquets was one of my advertising clients a long time ago and we
were pushing that image stuff. But jeez, things hadn't gone completely nutz
then, 26 years ago.

Being a cheap ******* by nature, it annoys me; I consider it a sign of
social decadence. d8-) Also, I'm jealous. But mostly I roll my eyes about
the people who pay those prices. I want to tell them to get a life. And I
want to tell them that they're driving the market crazy for the rest of us.
I don't *want* to envy the flyrods, smoothing planes, Arkansas stones, or
other things that are really nice, that speak to the desire we hobbyists all
seem to have for the sublime, but the prices for which they've driven all
out of sensible proportion.

So, back to earth, those prices, in my opinion, have little to do with costs
of production or normal competition. The competition among the suppliers
seems to be to see who can be more outrageous than the next guy. Griffin &
Howe is a lost cause in that regard and always has been. But when solid old
Norton charges $200 for a sharpening stone -- which has almost no real
commercial purpose, BTW: there are far more efficient ways to sharpen
tools -- I know the game is lost. That *can't* be a competitive price. It's
more likely a "brand image, no competition" price.

[ranting curmudgeon mode off] I'm glad you found a great stone for a
sensible price. Maybe I'll take a drive down there and stock up. d8-)

(BTW, to those who have been told for decades that a black, "surgical"
Arkansas stone is the finest, it's not. The translucent stones that oldjag
describes are the finest. They're the ultimate, the sublime, the ne plus
ultra.)

--
Ed Huntress