Smallbore,
Problem is when all the wood is two or three thousand miles away, your options are limited. Buy from photos or not at all. Just have a easy return policy if you get fooled. There are wood merchants and wood sellers. A decent wood merchant knows what a decent blanks is and will work with you to find what you need. Many wood sellers, not wood merchants, either do not know or do not care what decent wood looks like or what a decent layout is. So you buy figure from them and find it is just very expensive firewood.
Word gets around very fast these days who to buy from and who to never buy from. Kind of like dealers of double guns. Some are better than others and you can trust their descriptions and photos better than others.
I have learned good wood is where you find it and never let a good blank go by if you can buy it. Like many, I have more wood than I will ever use and am still buying more. Nice to upgrade the quality of the wood supply and to have a ever aging supply of wood. My oldest blank has been drying 60 plus years and the most recent maybe two years. Someday I pass on the wood I did not get to use in my lifetime, just like I will pass on guns that I have bought and will never wear out.
