Is there any significant different between the quality of Korean glass stones and Japanese made glass stones (10mm) offered on Yutopian? Also , how do they compare to Kiseido 10 mm glass stones

The Japanese glass stones should be better.Either identical or very similar, and you can always email Mr. Bozulich if there are problems with the quality.

That said, the Kuroki Size 38 (10.7 mm) Standard grade shell & slate stones cost 3 to 4 times
that of the 10mm Japanese glass stones (~US$100). So IMO the shell stones offer over 10 times the value.

I have all 3:
(1) Chinese ceramic/clay flat stones (US$3 ~ $14).
(2) Kiseido/Yutopian 10mm Japanese glass stones.
(3) Kuroki Size 38 (10.7 mm) Standard grade shell & slate.

IMO, (1) for bookstores/coffee shops and (3) for home use both offer excellent price/performance.
(2) offers the worst price/performance of the three.

interesting, one thing that hold me back from buying glass stones is that I have chinese board size from YMI, and they may be too small on chinese board size. I don't want to buy another board. I guess I like glass stones more than yunzi.

Yes, I also like glass stones over yunzi, and you're right, the Japanese glass stones
may be too small on a Chinese board. You'll get some gaps.

Butting in.
My 9mm Japanese stones are almost more than thirty years old, purchased directly from Ishi Press when they were in, umm, Irvine CA (?). These stones are of supreme quality, never seen anything like them from another supplier or manufacturer since. Just guessing, but I think Anton had them in stock for many years before I purchased them so they represented an era of production quality we may never see again.

david boise ID

_________________
David Bogie, Boise ID
I play go, I ride a recumbent, of course I use Macintosh.

Korean glass stones are the same size as Japanese or maybe even a little smaller. I'd buy the Japanese stones and not worry about the board size. If I recall correctly the Chinese boards are square, with the same spacing between the lines in each direction, while the Japanese (and Korean) boards have a larger space between the lines in one direction than in the other. Here is a link to an SL page with one set of Japanese board dimensions taken from a board hand made in a go board shop in Japan: http://senseis.xmp.net/?EquipmentDimensions Note that the line spacing width-wise is 22mm and the spacing length-wise is 23.7mm. I think the line spacing in both directions on Chinese boards is 23mm, but I could be wrong. If that's right then using 22mm diameter Japanese stones on a chinese board will approximately reproduce the Japanese length-wise spacing in both directions. If that spacing is not a problem on a Japanese board with Japanese stones, using a Chinese board won't make that much of a difference.

I think that square boards are no longer standard in China.
I checked on three of my boards, that are "Chinese Standard Size" according to my supplier and all had 24x22 mm "squares".
That said, I don't think playing with Japanese (or Korean) stones on a Chinese board is a problem; the other way around though, especially with the single convex stones, I'd not recommend.

/Mats

_________________
mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/