My opinion:

Many people truly do appreciate the fine differences between different sorts of expensive stones and boards and consider them important, and for them it really is worth thousands of dollars. Many additional people get caught up in the grades and terminology because they're so important to the first group, and pay a lot for (or simply covet) expensive equipment mostly because they sort of think they're expected to. Of course many of us also just like examining the whole situation from a safe distance.

I do admit that I enjoy possessing and playing with my yuki stones, though I wouldn't have bothered to get such a nice set if I hadn't been able to buy it secondhand (from bogiesan, back in the 20th century!). I was astonished to recently learn that their size of 30 is considered extremely thin; if I had read modern web pages and threads before buying them I probably would have been dissuaded from the purchase. They seem thick enough to me! So even my moderate-sized go equipment fetish doesn't extend to requiring size 36+ stones.

What are some good places to order equipment that have international shipping? There is a Go/Chess store in the Netherlands, but the selection of Go-equipment is very low. (It's where I bought my current cheap beech board and glass stones.)

While I'm not going to pay €1500 for a set of stones, I'm eventually going to get something better than glass stones. What I'd like to know: the glass stones have "20" in a string of Korean letters.

Could they be size 20? On one site, I found that size 20 would be 6mm. Size 28 is 7.5mm. I can play perfectly fine with my stones. To be honest, when looking at the image at Mr. Kuroki's site, I think size 32 is the best looking. Size image:



Size 36, and especially 40, start looking like an egg instead of a go stone... IMHO.

Would it be helpful if I posted an image of the box of my stones? I wonder if the 20 is indeed the size, because it seems charts in most places seem to start at 25 or 28, 36 seems to be the 'golden standard' for a lot of people, but my stones feel quite alright in the size/weight department. At least, to me, as I don't have any other reference.

edit: I stuck a few of the white stones in a caliper. They were between 8.48 and 8.52mm. Size 30 stones are 8mm, Size 32 are 8.8, so these stones are a tiny bit larger than size 31.

I think the majority of them would be willing to ship internationally you if you can communicate with them. Most shops have email addresses. It's a matter of overcoming the language barrier. I have bought fountain pens from multiple small Japanese shops without problems because I had a friend who spoke Japanese.

Now, I'm eyeing these Moon/Tsuki stones...

http://www.igo-shogi.co.jp/cgi-bin/saleItem_detailInfo.cgi?cc=2&gc=4&ic=00000090