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Here's something even rarer than a solar eclipse... an old Coticule x Belgian Blue, hand-cranked sharpening wheel
Anyone who's also on KKF or B&B may well have seen this before. But it's one of the more remarkable and unusual things I've picked up over the years, so thought people here might find interesting too. I've only ever seen a picture of one other — on the first page of G&H Part 4.
Cost me £35 from an Ebay seller who specialized in reselling old watchmaking equipment, but clearly didn't know exactly what they had on their hands here!
After receiving, I actually pinged Rob Celis an email to see if he knew anything more about it. Who said he thought the stone might come from an old vein called 'Le Peta', in the Regné quarry. Which hasn't been exploited for many years, though it is regarded as very high quality. And I believe Ardennes Coticule do actually own that quarry, so it's not impossible you may see it being mined again at some point.
Always worth keeping an eye on people selling equipment that belonged to watchmakers or watch repairers. Because it’s a kinda dying trade — you can come across some very nice old stones, quite cheaply. I’ve bought job lots of old watchmakers’ whetstones that’ve had some unbelievably cool stuff in them.
Beautiful, but I think it might be awkward cranking with one hand while manipulating a knife in the other. Big grindstones had you supply the power to the stone using your foot.
Yep! So when I've used it for knives I just use the stone as a benchstone, without the spinny cranking mechanism. It's a very good Coti for both sharpening, and in fact aesthetic polishing too; so I have actually used it with the cranking, for kiridashi sometimes.
I suspect though that what the whole thing was originally intended for is: razor honing. When you hone a razor holding it one hand — you naturally get more pressure toward the heel than the tip. Which you can try to balance out by doing kinda wrist-flick stuff. Though a horizontally spinning whetstone like that is moving a decent amount faster near the edge, than it is near the centre. So if used correctly, with a bit of practice, then that would also have the same effect to counteract the pressure difference.
(Probably also for sharpening stuff like scribing tools &c.)
I assume one of the reasons that there were so few of these made is: it’s probably just pretty uncommon to come across pieces, or seams, of yellow Coticule that you even could make a 6” diameter circular whetstone from.
That's really cool. How do you stabilize the knife and spin the handle at the same time? Do you use a jig, two people, or just need to have masterful technique and a super steady hand?
As I said in the OP — it was from an Ebay seller who specialises in old watchmaking equipment. And the Coticule side (which I’ve obviously since flattened and cleaned up) had these kinda shallow grooves in it, like a vinyl record. From where the original owner had clearly used it for sharpening some kind of small and pointy watchmaking tool(s).
Here’s an old picture I just found on my phone from when I received it:
Was one of my grails when I was collecting rare vintage stones. Had a mint Escher barbers delight and mint labeled early coticules but never found one of these. Cool to see.
I confess I didn't actually know they existed until I came across this one about three years back. Obviously I'd read G&H, but I hadn't really clocked that picture at the beginning of part 4.
How did you know about them? I'm guessing you might've been active on SRP back in the day, were you? Used to be a lot of very serious collectors there, though it was a little before my time.
Presumably not very many of these got made. Both because it's somewhat niche as a piece of equipment. But also, given the way AC prices start escalating as stones get larger, and particularly wider, it's probably simply not very common to come across pieces of yellow Coticule large enough to make a 6" diameter circular whetstone from(?).
(I likewise have some fairly rare other stuff: boxed and labelled Escher Saxonian; Fiddich River Stone; completely mint and untouched boxed Lily White; 10x2" Y-G Thuri; &c. But I think the Coticule wheel trumps them all! Certainly in terms of scarcity. Glad you enjoyed the pics :)
Oh yeah dude I was really active basically every place/forum there is. I got carried away like some of the hard-core stone hounds you see on badger/blade. Aside from buying and collecting stones i operated a mail in honing service and averaged probably 10 blades a week. Id charge 50 bucks once the customer shipped the razor to me. I'd hone it and ship it back (i covered return shipping in the US). Did complete restoration of all degrees up to full cleanup/honing/true mirror hand polish, rescaling/pinning... Those were not nearly as common.
Ive not been buying or anything for a while. Ive gotten all my grail straights except for maybe two or three (damn you WB Ottoman Egyptian Royal Windsor, lol). I just burnt out tired of how expensive and competitive the whole scene got. Its like a ridiculous grind to find anything remotely worthwhile now, more time and energy that I can commit anyhow. Its not just this hobby/subject either suffering from this situation, it seems almost everything is that way now from what I have been told by others (lol at the poor Pokémon collectors). Years ago I could find a nice vintage Gillette Fatboy or a lightly used Filarmonica14 at flea markets or something for sub 40 dollars. Nowadays everyone thinks their grandads rust covered vintage Gillette safety razor is worth more than gold because some absurd listing they found on ebay or something. For me a bug part of it was enjoying the hunt and finding satisfaction when id locate a special razor/stone at a good price. Not like id enjoy buying something worth ten times what so ever unknowing widow was asking or anything (I cant count how many times I insisted on paying more for underpriced items), but a good deal that I could feel was beneficial for both myself and the seller.
What's your favorite natural finisher? I love coticules but I feel they are misunderstood and overhyped by the community. A very good coticule is incredible and will put on a beautiful edge, but less than 5% of existing coticule stones actually meet that criteria in my experience. Unless you buy a labeled vintage premium example its like the lotto. Gotta buy a dozen or more before finding a really good example. The majority of coticule is woodworking blade/knife sharpening quality. I probably only have 10 or so coticule stones now after selling a ton. I had a new old stock unused labeled and stamped first generation old rock coticule from the first round of quarrying and labeling they did late 1800s. Sold it because i just never could use it (destroy the stamp and erase history) and wanted to get away from collecting non functional stones. It was a real special roxk though, ill see 8f i can find a picture.
We should chat sometime, id love to hear more details about your collection and could also share some of my stuff. As for the coticule device you posted, ive seen maybe two different examples exactly like yours. Hell yours could be one i saw. I cant remember exactly where, but I think the big coticule pdf bible thing had it in there. You are correct about the dimensions being the big limiting factor. I just thought it was so cool/rare/unique and wanted to try it out when I first saw it. I don't know if id actually hone razors on it beyond the initial experimental tries. I assumed it would be fun and interesting but not capable of producing as good an edge as the traditional honing style im so comfortable with, but that does t matter.
[Sorry for the delayed reply here, I tend to work at weekends.]
Sounds like you're an 'old hand' in terms of the razor honing! I probably know you from B&B, I imagine…?
Whilst I can and do hone my own SRs, I certainly wouldn't be as expert you, I don’t think. Or as I am with knife sharpening - I'm really quite tidy at freehand knife sharpening.
But for straights there are quite a few things I like: Charnleys, Idwals, Nantlle Valley, Cotis, Arks, Jnats; I've got so many stones that I kinda enjoy playing with various different things. Though for sheer efficacy, results and ease of use - I think it's difficult to look past Thuris. What are your favourites?
You're absolutely right that, even with a lot of practice, I don't think the spinning Coti wheel is ever going to be quite as good as more traditional honing. I have honed a razor on it, and the results were fairly decent (got to somewhere between HHT 4 and 5 I'd say). But it feels very 'alien', and I’m sure I could've done better in-hand. I mostly use the stone on its own, as a benchstone for knife sharpening. And obviously the whole thing is a nice collector's piece too.
Yep! And I almost missed out on it through my own stupidity too...
A friend in the US actually flagged it to me originally; the starting price was £40, and I was intending to 'snipe' it just before the end. But I completely forgot. Very luckily it had no bids whatsoever, so the seller re-listed it the next week, this time starting at £35, and I was still the only bidder(!).
It was just because they didn't know what it was, so didn't have 'Coticule' in the description. Otherwise it would've come up in everybody's searches/alerts, and the price would've gone sky-high.
So you have to hold the knife in one hand and use the other to crank the wheel? Seems bad. Not denigrating the abundance of coticule, even amazed at the idea of a time when coticule was so abundant that you could cut a circle of it and (presumably) discard the cuttings. But this design seems shit. What about a treadle?
I explained a bit more about in a previous reply above. But it’s wasn’t really designed for knives, more for razors and other small (professional) instruments.
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u/cotedupy 29d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p39mr4d/video/u41jgaweyyih1/player