Life In 19x19

Honkaya is mostly from China and there is much more availability. Hyuga Kaya is a rare resource now.

oren wrote:Honkaya is mostly from China and there is much more availability. Hyuga Kaya is a rare resource now.

That is precisely why I am confused. It seems natural that the rarer wood would be more expensive and be used to make premium boards only, making fewer boards with thicker cuts and being able to charge a lot for them.

DJLLAP wrote:

oren wrote:Honkaya is mostly from China and there is much more availability. Hyuga Kaya is a rare resource now.

That is precisely why I am confused. It seems natural that the rarer wood would be more expensive and be used to make premium boards only, making fewer boards with thicker cuts and being able to charge a lot for them.

If you look at the boards, the hyuga kaya ones are all thinner and have less desirable (itame) cuts, as compared with the various masame cuts in the honkaya boards. If you look at the table boards as well, the hyuga kaya ones tend to be constructed from more pieces, which is why they are cheaper.

DJLLAP wrote: That is precisely why I am confused. It seems natural that the rarer wood would be more expensive and be used to make premium boards only, making fewer boards with thicker cuts and being able to charge a lot for them.

They are being used for premium boards and they put the cuts together with the availability they have. I'm confused on your confusion.

DJLLAP wrote:

oren wrote:Honkaya is mostly from China and there is much more availability. Hyuga Kaya is a rare resource now.

That is precisely why I am confused. It seems natural that the rarer wood would be more expensive and be used to make premium boards only, making fewer boards with thicker cuts and being able to charge a lot for them.

Honkaya is used for genuine kaya from anywhere except from Miyazaki prefecture (called Hyuga in the past) so there is honkaya from Japan. To connoisseurs of kaya it is felt that honkaya is generally of lower quality compared to Hyuga kaya. However there is better and worse within any category of kaya, so some honkaya from somewhere other than Hyuga might be "better" than some boards made from Hyuga kaya. Many factors go into judging quality such as absence of flaws, color, coarseness of grain, straightness of the grain, and not least the skill of the maker. Thickness of the board is related to price. A thicker board will usually be more expensive than one of the same quality but less thick. 50000 yen sounds like a price of a kaya table top board. All the factors of quality could be involved, you can't just look at the thickness of the board. A board with a knot on the playing surface would be devalued compared to one with no knots. Genuine kaya is protected in Japan so kaya trees cannot be cut. New Japanese kaya lumber can only come from trees that fall over in a storm or otherwise die. Japanese katsura is becoming depleted, too, now.

This all makes sense. Of course there will be a wide variety of qualities and prices within each species of trees depending on the individual item for sale. I think the thing that seemed off or conspicuous was the lack of smaller (and therefore cheaper) boards in honkaya. In hyugakaya there are boards of all cuts ranging from 7.5cm through 18.3cm, from 50,000 yn to over 1,000,000. In honkaya the smallest board is 17cm and the largest about 22cm, and prices start at 185,000 - and most of these are masame. It totally makes sense that larger, better cuts of the "inferior" sourced kaya would be more expensive, but why are there no smaller and lesser cuts available in honkaya?

It doesn't really matter I guess. It just struck me as odd. It might just be what they happen to have had in stock most recently, and not an indication of any supply or market trends.

http://www.kurokigoishi.co.jp/onlinesho ... index.html

Does this meet wide variety?

oren wrote:http://www.kurokigoishi.co.jp/onlineshop/honkayagoban/index.html

Does this meet wide variety?

Those are actually the exact boards I was talking about. There is a pretty wide spread of prices in these gobans, but nothing in the economical range of 50,000-100,000, like they have in hyugakaya (I am only looking at floor gobans).

DJLLAP wrote:

Bonobo wrote:For my taste the onyx stones are also a little bit too shiny/glossy, I’d be afraid they’d also be to slippery when placing them. They seem … cold.

Onyx stones were really an idea trying to get nice, somewhat unique stones without forking over the money for slate and shell stones.

Unique they certainly are, and if you like the look & feel, nothing speaks against them; what I wrote about these stones just was the impression I got from the photos.

Even the lowest grade slate and shell stones are quite expensive if you want them to be decent sized.

Mh… not sure about that. I’d ask Mr. Kuroki or that other vendor whether they have some stones for a smaller budget, I’ve also seen that Mr. Kuroki sometimes offers specially priced stones in his “outlet” (if I understand correctly).

What kind of stones do you think are nice enough to play with on a good goban excluding shell stones? Maybe glass?

Good glass stones would be OK, I think. I have an elderly (perhaps 40 years) Katsura floor goban on which my glass stones look quite good, though meanwhile I prefer playing with my (likewise elderly) shell and slate stones, even though they probably are of the least quality available. (I was lucky to buy both from a friend for a good used price a few years ago.)

Above I wrote “good glass stones”, because apparently there are quality differences even here … I have one set of glass stones that has quite a lot of stones that are not properly centered (?), i.e. when they lay on the board they are tilted.

Anyway, if you are ready to shell [sic!] out as much money for a good goban as I got the impression from your inquiry, I think I’d save up some more $$ (€€ in my case) and ask the vendor whether they have a complete set for you, “economy class”, so to speak. I’m quite sure they will have something nice for you. At least that’s what I’m going to do some time in the future, since I’m convinced that Mr. Kuroki’s quality standards are so high that stones that won’t pass his tests for 3rd class stones still will be perfect for my taste.

Bear in mind that everybody else here will have more expertise in these things than I do, I am just talking about my taste and preference

I have one set of glass stones that has quite a lot of stones that are not properly centered (?), i.e. when they lay on the board they are tilted.

Yes, that would be very poor quality.

I suggest before you buy your go board that you read the following interview
http://rusgo.org/go-sets/

Here are the items I am looking at now.

Goban It is the first one 58,000 yen.

Stones and Bowls When you buy them in the set, you pretty much get the bowls for free. 45,300 yen

The quote I got for shipping on these items is pretty reasonable - 3 day delivery for 21,900 yen

The total for the purchase is 125,200yen, being about 1045 USD. According to dutycalculator.com this purchase is free from any import tax or duty in the US, so the only hidden cost should be the currency exchange fee.

$1000 is more than I originally planned to spend, but it does seem like a good deal for an absolutely beautiful kaya board with size 34 slate and shell stones and bowls. And after all, this will be a one time purchase to last me the rest of my life (which hopefully will be a long time yet).

What do you guys think of this set?

DJLLAP wrote:[..]
What do you guys think of this set?

I’m envious already.

Bonobo wrote:

Oh, and BTW, could you please please correct the subject line of your opening post? My eyes are bleeding every time I see “Post subject: Comapny Like Shodan Imports”

Just for you Bonobo.

Nice looking set. The board is comparable to a table-top board in thickness. Nice stones and bowls, too. I have a set of kuzu bowls and like them very much. With the 9.5 mm thick stones you might be likely to dent the board, especially if you "whack" down the stones or if you "slam" down the stones. Kaya is soft wood and is easily dented. This softness is a good quality which makes playing stones comfortable. You can see this in some of the descriptions of boards on Kuroki Goishi Ten website. As for denting, almost any kind of wood will eventually dent so it's normal.