eMail from China
Pong Yen from Yellow Mountain Imports is currently in China and he took the time to email me some photographs of Go equipment at retail. He will be visiting a factory soon and will, if he can, send more photos of the manufacturing processes.
The images below are at their actual sizes. They may have been taken with a phone camera.
This goban has an interesting dual-dragon relief.
This seems to be a replica of an antique goban. One like it was featured in a woodblock print by Kubo Shunman in the 1800s.
These are Go Seigen styled bowls but Pong said that they were of a different wood and too small. I'm guessing that single-convex Yunzis would fit in these but not bi-convex ones.
These look like they might be slate and shell, but the black stones are unusually glossy. The slight greenish tinge makes me think that they might instead be made of marble. Pong didn't give details in his email.
posted by ChiyoDad @ 6:15 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
The dragon go board looks very appealling. Can you ask him for prices on the items?
The dragon ones are like 300 or 400 bucks or something, the go stones at the bottom are agate and onyx stones. I, however, really, really recommend AGAINST them, because they're usually of pretty low quality, and Chinese pay little attention to the quality of products in general. With the price you pay for those stones, you can probably already get good set of standard grade clam stones. (The one I had had pieces with different sizes, and those that tips to one side because of varying thickness from something like .7 to 1.2 cm.
Recommendation, the only Chinese go stuff that is worth the money is old yunzi, cheap "jade" stones (not really jade, just some rock, but Chinese call everything jade), and the natural Catalpa boards. Stay away from Chinese Kaya if you can, esp if it's Chinese crafted.
Hello xcmeijin! I went ahead and forwarded your inquiry to Pong.
The stones at the bottom of my post are agate and onyx as can be seen from the photographs on Algorithmic Artisan. I was told that Algorithmic Artisan is now an abandoned site and that the seller can no longer be contacted.
goplayer2006 sometimes has agate stones for sale on eBay but the white ones do not have much texture and are somewhat translucent.
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