I found an interesting quote today in the book Games and Mathematics by David Wells (2012)

"When I learned to play in the 1960s good stones and boards were hard to come by in the West so we used a kind of sugared almond, painting half of them black. Te shape was close to Japanese standard stones which are made of shell or slate, but the weight, colour and feel were not right, but that mattered not at all because we used them as Go stones so they were Go stones."

Author profile here http://www.foxandhoward.co.uk/all-authors/david-wells/

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North Lecale

I wonder if they were jordan almonds?

stonez are hard and taste bad
-dezomb(?)

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be immersed

Just remembered that his name rang a bell, indeed he is an ancient BGA 3-dan
http://www.britgo.org/history/dans

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North Lecale

I'm not sure that go stones are harder than almond dragées...

When I started playing, one of my regular opponents learned in the 1960s. On of his first sets used mints for white stones and chocolates for black stones. Apparently their dog would take a keen interest in games, and add a stochastic element to the results.