Comparisons

Side-by-side pieces, where the difference between two things is the actual subject.

• Blackthorn stick vs blackthorn cane

  Same wood, two distinct objects — the working walking stick (long, heavy, traditional Irish register) and the gentleman's cane (shorter, slender, urban-formal register). When you want each.

• Blackthorn vs hawthorn for walking

  The two close-kin Rosaceae thorn-woods, side by side for working walking sticks — density, hardness, weight, the cultural register, and which is the right buyer's choice.

• Bo vs jo vs hanbo

  The three Japanese staves, side by side: six-foot long, four-foot medium, three-foot half — and the distinct martial-arts traditions each anchors.

• Handmade Irish vs imported walking stick

  How to tell a working handmade Irish stick from an imported lookalike — six diagnostic markers that separate the real artisan piece from the mass-produced product priced as if it were.

• Hickory vs ash for hiking staves

  American hickory and European ash, side by side: which is the better hill-walking stave wood, and why the answer is not the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

• Walking stick vs walking cane vs trekking pole

  Three different objects for three different use cases — and the terminology to keep them straight when you're buying one.

• Gift vs personal-use sticks

  Buying a stick for yourself and buying one as a gift are two different decisions. Here is what each one weights differently.

• Handmade vs machine-made sticks

  The two products look almost identical at the price-point of $15 vs $150. Here is exactly what the price difference is paying for, and what fails on the cheap one.

• Holly vs blackthorn vs oak vs ash

  Four traditional stick woods, side by side: how they look, how they behave under the hand, and which one belongs in which kind of stick.

• Irish vs Scottish vs Welsh sticks

  Three closely-related stick traditions that share a wood-sense and a craft-rhythm but produce visibly different objects. Here is how to recognise each.

• Shillelagh vs walking stick vs blackthorn stick

  Three terms that are used interchangeably in tourist shops but mean different things in the workshop. Here's what each one actually refers to.

• Vintage vs new sticks

  A thirty-year-old well-cared-for blackthorn stick is, in some respects, a finer object than a new one. Here is what time does to a stick, and what to look for in the secondary market.