As title. I want to buy a nice go set and was wondering the material of the stones in the photo. Thanks!
Is the person offering these for sale unable to answer such a question?
I’m not familiar with the company name on the label, but it seems to suggest that they are of Chinese origin. With that and how they appear in the photo, my highly uncertain guess is that they might be Yunzi stones.
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From the pic I can only guess they are made in China with glass material, biconvex.
Yunze is a very generic term for stones produced in Yunnan (which is not the only province to produce them). Usually they follow a protocol well described in the wiki article up.
If you know a Chinese native, he could help by translation
This is an edible arrangement. The Japanese letters on the caps say chocolate (one is a dark chocolate and one is a white chocolate)
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If you look a bit better you ll see some small characters around the 2 big ones (those have the transcription in pinyin just below)
I conclude from this that it’s Chinese, not Japanese and for chocolate, Google translate will be your friend. My guess it’s just a brand name.
claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620:
The image shows two oval-shaped signs or logos with Chinese characters and English text. The Chinese characters on both signs are “双林” (Shuāng Lín), which is likely the name of a brand or company.
Below the Chinese characters, there is English text that appears to say “Shuanglin” on both signs, which is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese characters.
gpt-4o-2024-05-13:
The text on the labels reads:
双林 ShuanglinThere is additional text in Chinese characters around the labels, but it is not clearly readable from the image provided. The primary focus is on the name “Shuanglin” which is written in both Chinese characters and Pinyin (the Romanization of Chinese characters).
gemini-1.5-pro-api-0514:
The text on the label is in Chinese. It reads:
双 林
ShuanglinThe characters “双 林” mean “Twin Forests”. “Shuanglin” is simply the Pinyin transliteration of the Chinese name.
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Even if there would not have been any logo’s or signs on the inside of the lids of the bowls I would also say the stones were from China because of their appearence and the box. They look like yunzi stones because of the ‘white dust’, indicating they are new and the milky, not shiny look of the white stones. The black stones, when held towards light, will turn green. I have never seen any ‘dust’ on new stones made of glass or resin.
The box is typical for chinese items. I’m not very familiar with Korean stones, bowls and boxes but most Japanese artefacts of any value are stored in wooden boxes made of Paulownia which protects against light and regulates humidity and temperature changes very well.
The bowls look like chestnut but I’m not sure. In any case, they are made of a quite common wood. Nothing wrong with that, don’t get me wrong. Yunzi stones often come with baskets.
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Chinese yes. But yunzi? Nothing from that pic proves it. No green transparency, the dust is not specific either from yunzi. I’m not saying they are not made from Yunnan, but I never heard of this brand either.
Me neither, but always on new Yunzi (and other ceramic stones not branded as “Yunzi”).
Also, the green colour only shows when shining a light through the black ones.
One should be careful with the yunzi term. Basically that’s addressing stones made in Yunnan but there are many factories and quality vary a lot. Prices too. Going from a price for an anecdotal glass set to a price similar to shell and slate set. You may even find “yunzi” made outside Yunnan when fabric knows how to get the green . For most it would be a sufficient proof of the origin.
Well, the oval labels are attached to the lid of the bowl so they might not have anything to do with the stones. Maybe they are a label from the woodshop or even from the seller of the set?
Well I am just saying this pic seems not enough to be sure it’s yunzi. If we could get the small characters translated, it could help.
You are right. As I said: they look like yunzi. I can imagine there are manifacturers that copy yunzi, like they copy anything 
. My set of yunzi stones came with two different labels stating ‘yunzi’.
I have to admit that the folded plastic ‘go board’ (behind the book) is not what one would expect to accompany a set of quality stones.
If you want to buy a nice go set: visit Baduk Club
Agreed. As I said before, these are likely Chinese chocolate of some sort.