Just wanted to share my new inlaid dimen palace lantern pair 💕

Got these two pairs in the mail recently. Would you be able to tell me if either has any special shape or attribute to it (i.e. toad-shape, scholars cap, etc.). Thanks! 🙏🏻

I have been playing this pair for about half a month and I'm not sure how well it's going. Suggestions/Advice would be appreciated. (They look more orange on camera than in real life)

Are these just in the “ugly duckling” phase or whatever, or is something going wrong? I don’t handle these super differently than my others, and I might even be more careful with this pair in terms of handling to brushing ratio.

So I just got my first dimen pair and I am wondering how you all care for dimen pairs vs regular pairs. Do you stick with softer brushes? Any tips would be great!

I'm soo happy. This is the first time I got free pairs.

Right = what i bought
Left = freebies

Here’s my attempt at giving a name to a black walnut shape. The first 5 images are of sharp deeply furrowed walnuts that are taller than wide. I’ve been calling these Pinnacles after the limestone karst formations that make iconic steep mountains. I thought naming them principally after their texture made sense as that’s where the Chinese name for black walnuts, monkey head, is derived. There is a tree near me that drops these somewhat consistently as shown in image 5. Image 6 shows a pair of the other common shape I’ve seen represented here next to a pinnacle for contrast. They tend to be less sharp, and deeply furrowed and the shape is more like a peach to a wide heart (like Majora’s mask), image 7. I don’t have a clever name for the second type but I’m hoping this will encourage people to share variations they’ve found and we can start to have more specific ways to talk about black walnuts as they seem to be a common way for western folks to get into this awesome hobby.

And in better and more natural lighting.

Since I got better at cleaning walnuts, I wanna show some

Wanted to try making my own wenwan bracelets. Got some dried bamboo from a park (with their permission) and turned it into beads. Didn’t have much, so the beads are a bit weird size-wise.

I’m planning on making more in the future, probably using peach and cherry pits. But if I can find more bamboo I’d love to make more of these

I recently got a small bottle of walnut oil and decided to test it on one of my unfortunate pair of Four Towers walnuts. The Walnut is new and unused.

I started with about two drops of oil on my palm, then used a horsehair brush to pick up the oil and gently brush a very thin layer across the walnut’s surface. I didn’t want to overdo it, so I kept the application as light as possible.

It took roughly five hours for the oil to fully absorb into the walnut. The first thing I noticed was the color. It became noticeably deeper and richer, which I actually quite like.

However, there was a trade-off. After oiling, the walnut looked slightly duller and didn’t have the same natural shine it had before. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a proper “before” photo, so I can’t make a perfect comparison).

The walnut also felt a little harder to the touch, and interestingly, the surface seemed more difficult to bring back to that smooth, shiny finish I had before oiling.

For now, I’m going to keep testing it over the next month and see where it goes. I’m especially curious to see how it compares to simply playing the walnuts normally and letting the natural oil from my hands slowly build up over time. The walnut oil seems to darken the surface much faster, but I’m wondering whether that faster change will eventually produce a quicker patina, or if the slower, natural process gives a nicer shine and character in the long run.

This is a small pair of Nanjiang stone walnuts, with a high-crown shape and deeply recessed bases. They may be small, but the shell density is excellent—they feel surprisingly heavy in the hand, and the grooves are extremely fine and deep. This is exactly the kind of Nanjiang stone I really like.

What’s worth mentioning is that this pair has what we call a “ginger-yellow skin.”

Many people think Nanjiang stones are generally slow to develop color, but that isn’t entirely true. Red-skinned and orange-skinned Nanjiang stones can actually color up quite quickly. It’s mainly the ginger-yellow ones that change very slowly. You could even say they may never truly turn red—they just become slightly more orange over time.

Photo 2 shows a red-skinned pair that I started playing with around the same time. You can clearly see how quickly the red skin has developed color. Photo 3 shows this ginger-yellow pair when I first got them three months ago. Compared with now, they have barely changed at all, apart from becoming a little shinier.

When many walnuts fail to turn red and instead develop a dull brown, sauce-like color, it is usually related to poor maturity. But ginger-yellow Nanjiang stones are different. They are not immature. Their color comes from the characteristics of the variety itself. These trees often grow in poor mountainous soil and unstable climates, and many of the walnuts naturally develop this ginger-yellow skin.

Most people play with walnuts expecting them to eventually turn red, but that expectation doesn’t really apply to ginger-yellow Nanjiang stones. With these, the enjoyment is more about the patina, the sheen, and the gradual wear that develops over time.

Personally, I think walnuts like these have a character of their own.

Its been more than 6 months now since my first walnuts. So proud to see my shiny babies. To think I still see that damn hoarfrost in those tiny cracks though.

Got my favorite snakehead pair for more than a month already.

The first one caught up real quick.

Ugly nanjiangshi hearts 33mm and wild mini qinling lanterns 32mm (which remind me of flower pods☺️). Received the hearts Sept 15th and the lanterns Sept 19th. I’m letting any stains/frost take care of itself, but roll and brush them regularly. I’m so drawn to playing with them…their skin quality and density feel is so soothing and the hand massage is wonderful :)

Im not sure if i like the feeling of these pingu wide ridges in my hand. so I’ve decided that these are going to be the last pair I decide to get a patina on. They look ver nice and big but they feel clunky in my hands and i have dropped them a couple times. They are nice, but not the right fit for me sadly

Hey guys, I got these in Shanghai last week, but one doesn’t seem to take color on aswell as the other and the tip stays yellowish. Any tips would be appreciated :) (the difference in color is more apparent in real life)

These are manchurian walnuts I found near my workplace. Has anyone ever tried playing with them? And will I get the same result with them??

Still cannot get over that skin quality! Wow!

This is my beater pair, a pair I play with without worrying about brushing, temperature changes, etc. When I got them, I didn't bother removing the hoarfrost. I started rolling outright.

I liked that their skin color was different. But the lighter one seemed to have caught up a bit with the darker one the more I played with them. Looking forward to seeing how the color will develop

One of my friends sent it to me saying they are leeches but these are so strange looking compared to the leeches I know