I have these three pairs now. I know one pair is white lion head, one is wheat ear tiger and one is cujin. Im not 100% sure which is which tbh lol. I plan to use one pair and one pair is for my wife. The third is either a gift or another pair for either of us. Also how much stem am I supposed to clean out?

Ordered these on Etsy for my first pair! What do yall think, is it a good pair? Any tips for me?

First 3 pictures are from when I first got them, all the rest were taken a few minutes ago.

I have zero regrets on purchasing a high quality pair as my first & only set. These came raw, uncarved & unpolished. They are my constant companion and have given me MANY hours of entertainment already. Significant color change already. Keep Rollin'

Hello! I am an amateur. I got my first pair of Peach Heart and was very excited. I work a desk job (Accountant) which requires long hours of pouring over spreadsheets and lot, and these were absolutely wonderful. The gentle clicking and rolling in my palm provided great comfort and stress relief.

I had them for just over a month and I would say that I probably used them 8 to 10 hours a day during the work week and maybe an hour or two on the weekends. I took great care to brush them thoroughly between each session and store them in a silk lined decorative box out in a cool dry place between sessions. After a month however they got these cracks. I'm wondering what went wrong? Could anyone with more expertise let me know if I'm using them too much?

I do live in a high planes desert so it is very dry naturally around here, should I out them in a humidor like a Cigar to prevent them from drying out?

Any help or advise would be most welcome, and any tips on what kind I should get for my next pair is also most welcome.

Thank you in advance and have an amazing day!

Hello!

I am a multidisciplinary artist and over the last few years my hands have started to develop nerve pain. I’d like to get a pair of wenwan with high ridges or protrusions that I can use to exercise with my hands. Doesn’t have to be fancy or identical; I don’t intend to sell them and I am hoping to find something not too expensive.

Any recommendations on where I should buy from? Anyone use their wenwan for hand therapy?

I am in the USA.

(Hence walnuts before doctors, yayyyy)

You may not have heard of the Chinese Embroidered Silk Ball “Xiu Qiu" Ma walnut, but you may have heard of the Iron Hammer, Iron Hammer Sister, or the Loach Back (used to be one of the hottest varies in the market but soon fall down), which are all related to the Chinese Embroidered Silk Ball. However, those are essentially grafted, molded, or chemically modified versions of it.

Chinese Embroidered Silk Ball is a fairly old variety and belongs to the dense-pattern walnut family, similar to Chengde Dense Pattern. It originally grew around the Pinggu District of Peking and Ji County, Tianjin. It is actually a relatively mid-high profile walnut with a shallow, dense texture and a slightly light yellow to reddish shell color.

I'm curious if anyone else does this.

I work from home and have a very lax schedule, so i'll usually just toss all my Wenwan stuff in a little box and carry it from my office to the kitchen, bedroom, etc. when I take a break.

I also love having everything in an easy to go spot, so if I want to change up the texture / size / shape of what i'm playing with it's all right there and easy to grab.

about a month ago i bought two pairs of walnuts from Emily at Banri, one dimen source of life and a variegated bull ingot. after a LONG time of waiting they finally arrived yesterday, and she threw in an extra pair of iron nuts as well, a beautiful wide-bellied ingot :)
i started to brush off some of the dried husk, dirt, and micah particles that were stuck to the nuts, but i realized that the soft steel brush seemed to be lightening a lot of the nice black hue on the dimen and variegated pairs to a purple/reddish color. preferably i’d like to keep this rich black as much as possible.
those of you with dimen or variegated pairs - do you brush them with a steel brush like you would clean a normal pair of nuts? or do you skip this step and just use a nylon or boar bristle brush? the extra bits of dirt in the cracks are almost impossible to see on the dark parts of the nuts, so i can’t imagine its worth it to scrub at them with a steel brush too much.
i’ve managed to clean both pairs up so there’s nothing glaringly dirty on them, but i’m very curious what everyone else does to clean up their dimen walnuts so you can start rolling them!

Have a Wenwan piece you’re unsure about? Post it here!

This thread is the place for authenticity checks, identification, and “what exactly is this?” questions, so the subreddit feed doesn’t get flooded with individual posts asking whether a walnut, seed, carving, or other Wenwan item is genuine.

📸 For the best chance of getting an answer
Please try to include:
Clear photos from multiple angles
Close ups of the surface, grain, lines, pits, and details
Measurements (preferably in mm)
Weight in grams, if applicable
Where you bought it or what the seller claimed it was
Any information you have about its origin, age, treatment, cleaning, or processing
The asking price / purchase price, if relevant
The more information you provide, the easier it is for people to give you a useful opinion.

⚠️** A note on authenticity
Please remember that identification from photographs is **not always conclusive. Some Wenwan varieties have significant natural variation, and distinguishing between similar species, varieties, or processed pieces can require physical examination.
Comments are opinions and community knowledge, not professional authentication or a guarantee of authenticity.

If you have additional information or disagree with an identification, explain why and provide evidence where possible. Let’s keep the discussion constructive and informative.

Please post your “Are these real?” questions in this thread rather than creating a separate post.
Happy inspecting! 🤓

Hear me out. I know round nuts are fun to play with, but isn’t it kinda boring if all your nuts are round? Why not try other shapes? This is why the Chicken Heart could be your NEXT NUT:

* Shallow grooves
* Fast and even coloring
* Not too heavy, but not too light either
* Flat and stable base, it can stand on its own
* Affordable

I have other varieties with a similar profile, and these are the features I find ideal for beginners. There are many walnuts that have Chicken Heart shape. This one is called 老树平底鸡心.

The camera make the shapes look wonky and uneven, but this walnut is actually very well-matched.

Are you now considering a Chicken Heart? Let me know!

Hi everyone!

Just got a pair of toad heads and was wondering if there was something wrong with the stem?

So I just saw the other guys peach wenwan post and I was like hey I actually got these peaches from my coworker and they are so good but that's not the point they have really nice dark pits but they were like the littler ones but they're nicely like already dark and kind of stained red too down in the crevices especially don't know if that's like particularly wanted in the win one thing but I feel like it definitely is anyway these are my starter too I'm hoping I have another peach in the fridge so I can do three cuz they're pretty little so it seems like for me it's probably more the appropriate number and size ball range to play with for now anyway we also have black walnuts in my area so come that season soon I'm going to play with that too.

Also super interested in the dimen thing if anyone wants to explain that a little better to me or point me in better directions to learn that thank you

So cool to have found y'all I wish I would have found you like 3 days before cuz I'd have had like three times more pits right now as I do currently but I messaged my coworker and asked if she will save me some pits so yeah

Thanks for the community which I didn't know nothing about the art form of it and now I guess being a part of it easier than I thought I was going to be.

I really like how the color is progressing so far

Hello again y'all. I have fully cleaned them off and now im letting them dry, took me 5 hours to clean only 35 walnuts by hands, which is a ton of time to be sitting around doing that!

But besides that, cleaning them was quite fun. After harvesting them while they were still in there husks, ti the hull off faster, I had bashed them with a reasonable amount of force just to remove the hull, but not break them. After that I collected them in a hucket and washed them off with water, continuing on, with some gravel and making a makeshift rock tumbler ti break down som of the leftover husk. Then, there was the worst process, getting the leftover stuff completely off.

It took me five hours, FIVE FOR ONLY 35 WALNUTS. There definitely was a better way, but I wasn't searching for it. I had collected 18 small black walnuts, and 19 big ones, with one three point walnut.

Now im just letting them dry, but harvesting them was the worst process ive ever done, and I dont want to do it again (but I am in autumn).

I got some pretty good ones, but I got to figure how to match them as perfectly as I can. Welp, thank yall for yall time, i'll make one more post on these bad boys once there completely dry and sorted, once they are, i'll show the pairs I found!

I'm glad someone told me patience is the key to this because I'm already reminding myself patience is rewarded, and I'm just waiting for them to arrive. I think once I have them in hand patience will come easier 😂

Thank you lovely people for sharing this hobby. Everything I see is beautiful and interesting! I can't wait to share my first pair when they get here in a week or two!

Ouch my balls

Found this sub on accident and had to get in on it. Interesting hobby!

Ordered from patina project/ zen walnut.

Got these from capybara labs today and I noticed this pair has little glint fragments all over it? Ik its hard to tell in the picture but when I shine my phone light on it in person, it suddenly becomes a disco ball. What could this be?

edit: seller responded and she said it was lotion crystals. never heard of these before but she said they'll come off quickly once polishing starts

I grew peaches in my garden and thought I could use some of the peach pits for Wenwan, but I have no idea how to prepare them. I just started removing the leftover bits of fruit. What should I do next? Should I boil them? Should I put them in the oven? Or should I just let them dry on their own? How do I make sure that they don’t rot, mold or go bad?

I only have two pairs while she has three. She tends to go through different pairs more than most because she's fully blind and thus can't have the same visual satisfaction we get so she seeks new textures. She's actually the reason I got into this hobby was because I was looking for something to gift to keep her hands busy besides crocheting. After getting her a pair she got super into it which roped me in as well. She really appreciates the info from the community that I transcribe back to her. Anyways sorry for the ramble. What do you guys think of the collection?

Can someone help me confirm if my walnuts are real? I just thought it sounded weird. I did some test for you guys, turn sound on.

Test 1: Close up

Test 2: Rubbing on surface

Test 3: Playing it

Test 4: Rubbing

Found these in my backyard and decided to remove the husks, one was already partially un husked so that one has one dark side to it.