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?

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).

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.

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).

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

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

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/

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http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

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?

I’m envious already.

_________________
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” — Salvador Dali ★ Play a slooooow correspondence game with me on OGS?

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.

Beautiful, and will give you many year of pleasure.
I also really like the color of the kusu bowls contrasting the color of the board.

You do seem to be from the USA. I hope you have considered you want a floor board with legs in stead of a table board. For westerners, a table board would seem more practical.

Enjoy!

The floor boards I know have the legs friction fit. That is there is no glue nor fasteners holding the legs in the board. That would mean that if you wanted to use this board as a table board you could remove the legs and then reinsert them when you want to use it as a floor board. Better check this with Kuroki to be sure it works for your board. I wouldn't be surprised if the board is shipped with the legs off anyhow.

I actually spend a good deal of my time on the floor already. The only table I have in my apartment is a low table, so that is where I eat, work, and play go. I also want to include a tatami room when I finally get around to building a house too. In any case, I like having the board being more of a piece of furniture with a set place in my home that having a board that needs a table to rest on, and would probably need to be moved frequently or become covered inn stacks of junk mail if I fail to use it for a week. The legs are carved so precisely that bonding agents are not needed, and they can be removed with out too much difficulty if I do want to use it on a table someday.

I just put in my order! I even decided to add a 9x9/13x13 board for good measure. It should be here by the end of the week! Ill be sure to post some pictures when I get it. Thanks for your advice and input everyone!

In practice was there any cost related to duties/customs/importing to the US in general? Not to bring back an old post, I just didn't want to make a new thread if the topic was already looked at.

I'm looking at a used set of snow grade stones to import from Japan into the US; is there any additional cost related to importing go stones?

I haven't posted in a while, so here goes . (I haven't read all the posts in this topic, so my apologies if I'm repeating something).

There shouldn't, in theory, be any customs fees on Go when importing into the United States. Go, even the high quality equipment, falls under the category of "board games" which doesn't have importation taxes. I'd clean up and resell large quantities of stones and boards before moving to Shanghai, and I never paid import taxes on the 4 - 5 huge 50 - 100 kg boxes that would come with each shipment.

Just make sure the stones are listed as "board game" on the import slip, otherwise you may be charged.

That said, import companies might have their own fees for handling customs (Fedex charges $25 per shipment).