Life In 19x19

If the stones come down a conveyor belt strewn all about it would be hard to catch that kind of defect I think. I have some glass stones and they all sit wonderfully. I believe I got them from Janice Kim but it looks like she doesn't sell anything anymore.

The texture of the white and black are different, so I bet the processing of them is a bit different.

As a side note to all of this, this week I took delivery of my size 41 (11.6mm) Yunzi stones from Yellow Mountain Imports. These things are quite fat and they like to wobble a bit when placed on the goban with authority. They seem pretty sturdy and uniform in shape, but...

One of the black stones was shattered into about seven shards during shipment. Interestingly, both the shrink packs of white and black stones came with a little ziplock baggie of five extra stones embedded within, almost as if they knew that a couple of stones were likely to become casualties. Also, I noticed that white Yunzi stones have a tendency to acquire dark gray hairline "scars" on their surface from rubbing against each other.

Collecting these various stone sets has been quite a learning experience. I'd love to get my hands on a slate & shell set now...

Some of the Yunzi's shatter during shipment because I believe they have internal defects from the firing process anyway. Just think of it as a QC trial by fire.

Can I just repeat that, while glass stones are never perfectly uniform, this sort of thing is very unusual with these stones.

When I showed these photos to Younggil just now he was really surprised. He has about 30 sets of these at his Go school has also used the same stones in professional tournaments. He said he hasn't seen stones like this before.

The reason why we got these stones, as a higher quality glass stones option, was that Younggil thinks they're among the best glass stones you can get at a reasonable price. We also have some cheaper glass stones available for those who want them.

Years ago, I used to sell Yunzi (and some other products) in Australia when I was still at university. The Yunzi had a much higher propensity for cracking during freight from China (even before being sent to customers) and I can remember playing someone using Yunzi where the stone shattered and pieces flew in all directions when played.

Can I also say that it's quite disheartening to stumble upon a thread like this by chance when simply contacting us directly would have seen the problem fixed quickly. What we're trying to do is already hard enough.

gogameguru wrote:when simply contacting us directly would have seen the problem fixed quickly.

In fairness to him, he probably didn't expect you guys to be so accommodating. In other businesses, exchanging products with manufacturing defects that don't significantly impact usability is a huge pain. Even if you buy a shiny new Macbook Pro, getting them to replace the screen if the number of dead pixels does not exceed some arbitrary number requires days on the phone even if you purchased the overpriced AppleCare (and there is no guarantee that your customer service rep will accept your request).

PS: I'm not picking on Apple. Other companies are like that, too. It's just the one that came to mind first.

gogameguru wrote:Can I also say that it's quite disheartening to stumble upon a thread like this by chance when simply contacting us directly would have seen the problem fixed quickly. What we're trying to do is already hard enough.

I was not aware this was a problem I could have fixed by contacting you. As far as I knew, this sort of thing was to be expected of glass stones in general and this kind of problem comes down to buyers remorse.

I was asking if this was characteristic of glass stones in general, and if others had similar experiences. I was wondering if I should have expected this of all glass stone sets, or if this was an anomaly. This being the first stone set I have purchased, I am a little in the dark about these things.

I'm just going through the stones now and it's about 50/50 so far for the white ones. Is it normal for tiny subtle tilts on glass stones? Do all sets have tiny imperfections, where they may not sit perfectly level, or should I cast out all of them which tilt even a little bit? Some of them seem okay but upon close inspection they do have a tilt. At this stage I'm merely wondering how picky I should be.

This thread is making me more curious than ever about the Korean 10.6mm glass stones that I have on the way. I would imagine that the thicker the stone, the greater propensity for tilting and unevenness. Makes me really appreciate the slightly flattened surfaces of the plastic ING stones, which pretty much guarantees that they lay uniformly flat on the goban.

Are glass stones the most common type used in Go clubs, salons, and tournaments everywhere outside of China?

zslane wrote:This thread is making me more curious than ever about the Korean 10.6mm glass stones that I have on the way. I would imagine that the thicker the stone, the greater propensity for tilting and unevenness. Makes me really appreciate the slightly flattened surfaces of the plastic ING stones, which pretty much guarantees that they lay uniformly flat on the goban.

Are glass stones the most common type used in Go clubs, salons, and tournaments everywhere outside of China?

All of the clubs I've been to in the US that have their 'own' equipment (as opposed to people just bringing their personal sets in) have ING Stones.

badukJr wrote:All of the clubs I've been to in the US that have their 'own' equipment ... have ING Stones.

Most likely this is because they got the ING stones (and containers) from the AGA (or AGF?).

One reason black stones are less susceptible to defects could be that they are less visible. Black stones look very shadowy, so any irregularities in shape are easily overlooked. Unlike white stones, which are (obviously) very bright, in which defects are easily noticed. That said, I didn't find any black stones with anywhere near the same degree of tilt the pictured white stones had.

badukJr wrote:

zslane wrote:Are glass stones the most common type used in Go clubs, salons, and tournaments everywhere outside of China?

All of the clubs I've been to in the US that have their 'own' equipment (as opposed to people just bringing their personal sets in) have ING Stones.

The Seattle Go Center uses glass stones

xed_over wrote:

badukJr wrote:

zslane wrote:Are glass stones the most common type used in Go clubs, salons, and tournaments everywhere outside of China?

All of the clubs I've been to in the US that have their 'own' equipment (as opposed to people just bringing their personal sets in) have ING Stones.

The Seattle Go Center uses glass stones

Yeah well they have their own building and those nice thick boards. I haven't seen anything like that anywhere else. I certainly wish it...

Haha, they even have wooden bowls. Tupperware containers is the standard I find.

David (GGG),

Do you have any plans to sell yunzi - biconvex stones? I'd love to go in for some 38s in those.

badukJr wrote:

zslane wrote:This thread is making me more curious than ever about the Korean 10.6mm glass stones that I have on the way. I would imagine that the thicker the stone, the greater propensity for tilting and unevenness. Makes me really appreciate the slightly flattened surfaces of the plastic ING stones, which pretty much guarantees that they lay uniformly flat on the goban.

Are glass stones the most common type used in Go clubs, salons, and tournaments everywhere outside of China?

All of the clubs I've been to in the US that have their 'own' equipment (as opposed to people just bringing their personal sets in) have ING Stones.

The Greater Washington Go Club also uses glass stones and primarily agathis boards.

EDIT: I'm not sure how old the sets are, but the club certainly predates the Ing foundation.

This may seem like an odd question, but how often do clubs wash their glass stones?