David Weaver
(When I bought used stones at the outset, I tried to buy mostly unstamped stones because at least half of the stamps are fake. This stone was perfectly uniform with no flaws, and about the same color as older shobu and nakayama stones - stones like that coming from people who pick razors shops usually do pretty well and if they're unstamped, they don't cost much and they're better than most current stamped stones -even legitimate stamped stones).

This stone ended up being one of the cheapest stones I ever bought (there are more folks looking for them to re-sell now, and such deals are scarce) at about $37 or something (figure after all is said and done, it costs about $70 to get a stone like that over here if it's bunched together with others by the proxy shipper and then sent on the ground).

It had glue on one end, and one corner is partially broken off, but not enough to affect function. the glue was a little loose, so I picked it off, and under it is this:

正本山合� �

That's not a specific stamp, but an older style stamp that specifies that the stone is a true finishing stone. IT may be used in combination with other stamps on newer faked or restamped versions, but usually fakers can't resist either clarifying that the stone is nakayama and often maruka (one of the few kanji with a circle around it).

The value of stamps is so high that now the legitimate dealers have decided they can mine-mark unmarked stones if they feel the characteristics are right. I don't agree with that, but never made a profit, so I don't really care. The used market at the time that I sold unstamped used and graded stones would pay twice as much for a stone with a bright purple fake maruka stamp on it and usually a bunch of other stuff all over the stone, and then physical or aesthetic flaws that never would've been stamped at all. People would buy a stone from me for $200 that I graded and showed comparative microscope pictures from (this is why I actually have this scope) on razor edges, and then gloat about a maruka stone that they had that they "only gave $800 for, but it's worth at least $3500 according to the dealer who sold it".

The fake stamp thing is a weird issue because there were dealers who specialize in selling stones in the US (not alex gilmore, by the way) as well as dealers in japan who specialize in selling to europe and the US and they have faked stamps off and on, ultimately getting to the point that it was ridiculous. There is no legal protection for the stamps that they used, so there's no recourse other than getting kicked out of trade groups, but if you're selling europeans and americans and quadrupling the price of stones, why care?

Ultimately, the association in japan decided that since there are a lot of unmarked stones around, the legitimate dealers may also start stamping stones based on their best guess at what they are. I don't like that, but I wanted to do two things:
* put pressure on the antisocial jerk dealers in the US who specialize in marking nearly valueless stones in japan, and then won't take returns - they'll sell them to unwitting beginners for 4-6 times what they are actually worth
* do an at-cost look at a whole bunch of stones, keep a few good ones, and make an expectation for the market that stones would otherwise be sold with some kind of proof about how they work

I bought two stones early on from alex. They were what he said they were and no fake stamps (well, one was more coarse than he said - a suita, but I learned in time that instead of getting what I thought was a steal, I got a fair price on that one and it had excellent feel and there's lots of room for actual use of a strong cutting stone like that - it's kind of the washita of japanese stones). I no longer have either one of them, and he asked if I would give a testimonial and put my name on his website with someone else's testimonial....that was weird, but all stone nuts are a little eccentric and if it was just mixed up from a bunch of emails with other people, that's OK. I'm wary of most other dealers - and no matter who the dealer is, it's always going to be about 3 times the price of what a stone would be in japan, and the standards may not be what you're expecting . They're running a business and have costs and can't just sit on 2/3rds of the stones and sell them as "just OK".

no more boring stories aside from the fact that out of a couple of hundred stones, this is the only one out of all of them that unexpectedly had an old stamp on it.