Board craftsman Mr. YOSHIDA made Shin kaya [Spruce wood] Shihou-masa 2.8-Sun (thick about 86 mm) No.79082F

This board is "Shihou-masa", which is an ideal cutting style with straight grain (masame)* on the top, bottom, and both sides (players' sides) of the board.
It is a beautiful board with Moku, fine figured grain.
The bottom has a scratch.
*Please check the photo images.

Yoshida Gobanten was established in 1916 and continuously made various Go and Shogi boards for more than 100years.
The owner takes over the name of 'Master Yoshida Torayoshi' for generations.
All the boards made by the 3rd and 4th generation of Yoshida Torayoshi, the present owner, have engraved words of Ichi-jo (一如) in Chinese character, as the evidence of his work.
The word 'Ichi-jo' is a part of famous four-character idiom 'Busshin Ichi-nyo (物心一如)', that literally means 'matter and mind are one/body and mind as one'.
This implies a strong will that when we make boards, our board and mind are as one.
The engraved words 'Ichi-jo (一如)' is the evidence of Go master, who made this board with his spirit and board as one.
We are happy to offer these special boards made by the Go board master Mr. YOSHIDA Torayoshi, for his devotion and his long years of experience and outstanding technique.

Shin-kaya wood, also known as "new kaya", is a spruce wood grown mainly in North America, which is different from Japanese kaya.
Spruce wood is widely used because it grows straight, is odorless, has low oil content, is easy to process, and is in good supply, making it relatively inexpensive to produce Go/shogi boards.
Spruce board is sold at an affordable price but it has a similar grain and color to honkaya but is not as high quality as honkaya wood.
The quality of the spruce is comparable to that of honkaya or Hyuga kaya, but it is less prone to deformation and cracking.
Spruce wood is also used as SPF (spruce, pine, fir) material for furniture and building materials, but unlike kaya wood, it shows significant deterioration over time, such as changes in wood color, and has a shorter life span.

*Go board materials are explained detail in "How to choose a board".
Please take a look.
Go to "How to choose a board".

"Shihou-masa" cutting style is the most valuable cutting style among all cutting styles !!!

"Shihou-masa" is an ideal cutting style with straight grain (masame)* on the top, bottom, and both sides (players' sides) of the board.
This cutting style is only possible when the wood is cut out from a tree with a large diameter, so we can say that the word shihou-masa means the boards are made from trees with a large diameter or a well-aged tree.
Therefore, it is regarded as the most valuable board with a higher price.
Especially, a board made of kaya wood (Japanese Torreya) shihou-masa is very expensive, sometimes priced in the millions or even tens of millions of JPY (several thousand to several hundred thousand US dollars), because they are extremely rare and hard to get.

*Go board cutting styles are explained detail in "How to choose a board".
Please take a look.
Go to "How to choose a board".

• Board craftsman Mr. YOSHIDA made Shin kaya [Spruce wood] Shihou-masa 2.8-Sun (thick about 86 mm) Moku
  Product No : No.79082F
• Size：367 mm × 338 mm × 86 mm
• Weight：About 5.8 kg
• Included : Certificate
• 1,000 JPY flat rate shipping within Japan, free shipping for purchases totaling 20,000 JPY or more.
  Please bear the actual cost for shipping charges outside Japan.

You may find small knots, burrs, rolled-in bark as all these products are made of natural trees.
There may be some small flaw or scratch, dent, chipping.