Stan has been around for a long time. He's particular. Years ago, he got me a brand new old stock kiyotada mortise chisel and marked it up exactly zero from the hardware store price tag that was on it - he and I were talking, and I kind of like chisels, and he just wanted me to be able to get something that's ungettable and see how neatly and how well it was made. And it is just that - understated near perfection.
He's definitely not interested in someone wanting him to tell him what's up, but I can't say I'm any nicer about that. A long time ago, he'd posted some tansu that he made, and it was flat out legit stuff (also very neat and particular, and relatively understated given how neatly it was made).
One thing I learned from him (in chasing microstructure with my own chisels) is that some of the better tools over there with attention to detail will trim the iron rings on the japanese chisels. As in, he had a forged marking knife and was giving me instruction on setting up the kiyotada (i'm sure that's on his blog now somewhere as he'd repeated it to other people several times and sooner or later you figure out it's just better to put it somewhere and refer to it) the way he'd seen in the tokyo area, and he trimmed the iron ring with a white steel marking knife.
I got out one of the cheap pre-laminated knives sold here for $25 and tried the same thing - no bueno. I can make a chisel now that will do it, though, but not just by heating bar stock and quenching it in motor oil and torching it to straw.
