3D printed clam shell stones?

[by78]

The set I linked costs around $38000.00! That's over $200.00 per stone.

OK, you were right and I was wrong: that one I missed, and I admit that I only counted the “available” sets.

No problem... You and I have been on the same page all along.

[Babelardus]

Wow. The price difference between Blossom Grade and Snow Grade is rather large. The Snow Grade can be >= 3x as expensive. (What is Blossom Grade? Never heard of that, to be honest. I do know Moon Grade. Maybe it's something exclusive to Kuroki.)

[Erythen]

Wow. The price difference between Blossom Grade and Snow Grade is rather large. The Snow Grade can be >= 3x as expensive. (What is Blossom Grade? Never heard of that, to be honest. I do know Moon Grade. Maybe it's something exclusive to Kuroki.)

Blossom (Hana) grade is specific to rare Hyuga (Suwabute) clamshell stones. They're graded more on color than on grain since the grain is fine throughout (so much so it puts Mexican snow grade to shame). Snow grade will be mostly white with just a hint of orange for warmth while flower will have a very noticeable orange spotting (especially on the back side)

Suwabute grading
Snow --> Moon --> Blossom
Yuki --> Tsuki --> Hana

Moon (Tsuki) grade is the middle point between Snow (Yuki) and standard/practical (Jitsuyo). Mr. Kuroki used to manufacture moon grade stones (and still does for special Hyuga products), but I suspect he stopped due to the lack of source material. Moon grade has nice lines and is stronger than standard grade, but they're not as evenly spaced as Snow.

If you wanted moon grade you could send him a message and see if he can put together a set for you (If you do, please post the answer since I'm curious if that's still a possibility).

The set I linked costs around $38000.00! That's over $200.00 per stone.

I once had the chance to hold some of his size 40 Snow Grade Suwabute stones. Those are about $2200 a piece. It would be cheaper to buy a full set in gold and silver

Though to be fair you could probably count the number of size 40 Hyuga sets ever produced on one hand.

[Babelardus]

If you wanted moon grade you could send him a message and see if he can put together a set for you (If you do, please post the answer since I'm curious if that's still a possibility).

At this point in time, I don't actually need anything, as I don't even know anyone else who plays Go in real life, and the nearest Go-club meets only on Wednesday as of 21:00. If a game in their competition takes 2-3 hours, I'm going to get home around 00:30 at the earliest, and that is too late. So, I only have a very cheap set with glass stones atm, to replay some games if I want to use a real board.

To be honest (and this may be heresy to say so in here), I think a lot of Go equipment is too far over the top. 720K yen (~5000+ euro's) for a set of stones? Even though the source material they are made of is almost depleted the world around? Over €1500 for the best bowls, and boards up to €50K?!

Well... if you put down $500 for a chess board, you'll have a top board, as good as the best tournament boards in use today. (It actually is a DGT electronic computer board, used on world championships. Dutch product, by the way :p) You could go up to €650 if you want the most expensive pieces for it.

I'm truly flabbergasted why so much noise is made over the types and gradings of boards and stones available to play Go. A good board with glass stones can be had for under €200; spending €5000 won't make you any stronger :p

I know, it's nice to have some luxury now and again, but I think that if I get something better at some point in time, that €500 or so for the stones, is the max.

[by78]

Blossom (Hana) grade is specific to rare Hyuga (Suwabute) clamshell stones. They're graded more on color than on grain since the grain is fine throughout (so much so it puts Mexican snow grade to shame).

Kuroki is currently selling 'Premium Blossom grade' stones. The website states that these are made from Mexican clams, not the rare Hyuga (Suwabute) variety. So Kuroki appeared to have re-purposed the term 'Blossom grade' and applied it to their Mexican clams, which brings up questions that Kuroki website doesn't answer:

1) How does 'Premium Blossom' differ from 'Premium Snow'? What are the selection criteria?

2) How does this 'Premium Blossom' grade compare with the discontinued 'Moon/Tsuki' grade? Is there any difference in their respective selection criteria?

Now, I wonder if this new 'Premium Blossom' grade is in fact the discontinued 'Moon/Tsuki' grade. If so, this is quite a steep price rise. I can get equivalent 'Moon/Tsuki' grade stones elsewhere for less than half the price.

[dfan]

To be honest (and this may be heresy to say so in here), I think a lot of Go equipment is too far over the top. 720K yen (~5000+ euro's) for a set of stones? Even though the source material they are made of is almost depleted the world around? Over €1500 for the best bowls, and boards up to €50K?!

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.

[Babelardus]

Now, I wonder if this new 'Premium Blossom' grade is in fact the discontinued 'Moon/Tsuki' grade. If so, this is quite a steep price rise. I can get equivalent 'Moon/Tsuki' grade stones elsewhere for less than half the price.

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.)

[Babelardus]

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.

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.

[by78]

Now, I wonder if this new 'Premium Blossom' grade is in fact the discontinued 'Moon/Tsuki' grade. If so, this is quite a steep price rise. I can get equivalent 'Moon/Tsuki' grade stones elsewhere for less than half the price.

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.)

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