Kyen

There’s certainly decades-old kyen. Here’s what it looks like:



As to what happened here, in the words of the greatest scholar, “I don’t know.” But when you slice into it, you find the hallmark oily striations that define kyen turn into a hard waxy sort of resistance like hardened caramel candy moreso than carving through wood. Trees, hombre. Trees. Some yield coconuts, others durian. Some hard resin, others semi-hard ‘resinified’ oleoresin. You want to walk into class and for me to draw an infallible mathematical equation on the blackboard. But this is neither physics nor mathematics. Nor is it chemistry. And if you insist that the process leading to hardened or semi-soft resin is invariably a chemical one, something a chemist or group of highly qualified chemistry nuts can get to the bottom of if they dedicated several centuries of observation and experiments to, all I can say in that case is, I am not that chemist!

The centennial kyen featured above is just around 2 kg. Just last night, I offered to pay $200,000 for it, a price that is paid in the China market for the highest grade slabs of black, 100% resin-dense seah that you can carve into statues and miniatures.

Their hearts in their mouths, @Kruger and @~A Coburn witnessed the whole exchange. The owner gave a chuckle, and asked for it to be put away. There was no deal. The price I offered was too low.

Now, if you look at the shape of the piece, it is full of cuts, chiseled marks and holes. I have cooked oil from wood collected from those same holes and crevices. It smells like this wood does on low and medium heat and—to me—better than the wood.

Does the math add up?

@Ensarquestion: would agarwood classified by chinese as sugary formation wood be old kyen or...?

as for the price and math adding up question, i can see that working out because the shavings and dust etc. pieces arent necessarily of interest or as much interest to the buyers of the large pieces. so i am sure you get a good deal on them. maybe once upon a time a dime on a dollar but i am sure that has changed too.

There’s certainly decades-old kyen. Here’s what it looks like: