Thread: Escher Barber's Delight. Worth the price difference?

Originally Posted by dcaven

There is one on ebay right now for $1300. That is $500 more than a pristine Escher that is not a Barber's Delight. I think they are both a high but wonder if there is really $500 difference in quality between the two or if it is more for collectors who won't be honing.

The guy is proud of his stone. He has seen what they went for some months ago, and wants to play lotto. Doesn't cost him to list it. The price of Eschers, Fillys, Ducks goes up, and goes down. Catching it on the down stroke is a better bet, unless instant gratification is paramount. IMHO. Here are some recent examples ;

Vintage Escher Co Water Straight Razor Hone Light Green Sharpening Stone | eBay

(item # 131467287489) in case the links don't open ......

Vintage J G Escher Sons Water Razor Hone Hone's Stone Sharpener Knifes Blades | eBay

(item # 321703392097)

Some of you guys have to accept that you are late to the game

Understand that much of the "Singing High Praises" of these rocks were written years ago when an EXPENSIVE Escher was around $100 a 8x3 Select Grade (there were no fancy names) Coticule was $75 we tried stones out like crazy and talked about the subtle differences,,,

The most expensive hone I own is still a Shapton 30k by double the cost of any other hone in the chest including a super fine Nakayama

I am NOT saying these hones are not the end all be all of honing, but I wrote that when they cost much less hehehe


(There is a small bit of humor along with some sense in the above)

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Yeah, those were price PER DOZEN !!!! Arrrrggghhhh !!!! End of rant, I feel better now.

I've had 3 Barber's Delight, 1 Barber's Gem, and a couple 8x2, and 7& 1/2 x 1& 7/16 IIRC. The BD is very cool, especially if it comes with the box and slurry stone. Is it worth the north of a thousand $ a guy is showing for on the bay ? Not to me. I've gotten them for half of that, or less than half. I've seen the prices of Eschers ebb and flow since I've been around SRP.

I saw a beautiful labeled B/G go for less than $300.00 a few weeks ago (on the bay). Next week the same stone might bring six or eight hundred. Depends on who is looking, how much disposable income they have, and how bad they want it. If you have to have one, and you have to have it now .......

I've had a gang of them and sold them all but one. It is not a BD, but is as good as any of the three BDs I have had. An old stone, a yellow/green 5x2 & 1/2 in the red box ;

Attachment 198516Attachment 198517

Jimmy, I have that exact same stone in the red box, B.T. Co and same sticker below it. It's hands down the best thuri I've tried.

Well as pointed out in several posts - both Escher companies Escher&Co and Escher&Son (different - independend companies since the late 19th century) acquiered their hones from whetstone makers in Steinach. They had no own or rented quarries for the waterhones.
This said - it is clear, that there is in general no quality difference between an Escher labelled hone and a vintage Thuringian.
The Escher companies had a good quality control though, so they took only good quality hones that they labelled and sold. And the Barbers deligth hones were special selected.
But the same quality of hones is out there as a simple unlabelled thuringian. You just have to try a vew different ones until you might find the best one for you.
I personally don't think that any hone is worth a price beyond 500$ - as good as it might be -from a users standpoint. From a collectors standpoint it might be different, but nowbody can really say, where the prices may go in the future.

Oops, I missed that. Price per dozen. Equivalent to $17.50 each in today's dollars for the most expensive hones in that list. For the barber's delight.

I'll echo the sentiments above, when they get above a certain price level, it doesn't make sense to me - some attributes are given to them just because of the price. I had a nice labeled Y/G for a year or so (maybe more) and every time I used it, it did the job but I didn't think any more of it than any other good stone I've used (arks, decent jnats, etc).

It's just a bad time to be buying hones.

It's my rock, apart from hardness, a thuri is a thuri is a thuri imo. I think the consistency of them is pretty much what made them legendary... I actually prefer the db ones they tend to be a bit firmer and play nicer with softer steels. That said, that is THE thuri if you collect labeled/boxed hones and one hadn't been offered up there in a good long while when I threw it up... This one has tremendous performance as to be expected... My advice to guys who don't care about the provenance of labels is to learn the tells on unstamped thuris. My main one is most likely a droescher that lost its label ages ago.

Last two sold were $1280 on 4/19/14 from eBay us and $943.12 from eBay UK, so someone may have had to pony up the hideous UK shipping fees also on 5/25/14. None up since.

I love my Barber's Delight, was lucky to get it for less than USD 50. But it ain't much better than many other Thuri's. Barber's Delight was Escher's top brand and that is what you pay for.

I ended up buying a fairly large Escher hone. I have a Hohenzollern that was not very expensive (relatively speaking) that is a great stone. The Escher I bought is bigger and I can ultimately give one or the other to my son.

I'm curious, mine came in a red box, no lid.

Any ideas what this one is, it looks blue/green, but just wondering if the label on the stone denoted the grade?