Search for the whole burl. Buy it by the pound and cut it the way you like. (Wet burl is heavy)
This is god-awful expensive--there will be LOTS of waste. But, when you want the best, money has to become secondary.
Oh, and look for wet---great burls sell first---you want dry, ready to turn, you get what nobody bought wet.
FWIW,
Ed
Wow, great piece of advice Ed, something that most people never though about but, is a very accurate truth, indeed...!
This is obviously a fact, with the more commercial type business, while the "smaller guys" tend to preserve the wet wood (burl or not) until is condition is more workable.
There is no doubt that, 99% of pen turners in particular, are only interested in dry wood, something that they can turn as soon as they get it, and that can become a habit that can only cost them good money but also a habit that will endup a disaster with some blanks, as they believe that, everything they buy is dry, ready to go and then, the wood show them different and pens are spoiled...!
There is just not possible to expect big companies to maintain the green woods in storage until they are dry sufficiently for sale, in the old days yes, that was exactly how it was done but not in our days where, woods and burls species with high demand are bough green for any cost by people that have the conditions, money and time, to wait a few years to allow the woods to dry, before they are used in their work.
The mentality is that, and as Ed mentioned, unless they buy it green from the the woods/burls first sale/available to the public, they get nothing of exception interest. In fact, some people went a step further and contracted the burl hunters to collect the burls for them, exclusively so, only what they don't want, goes on sale...!
Is just the way it is, the higher the price "people" put on some woods and burls heads, the more these things will happen, as money talks...!
On the other hand, there are lots of small guys out there that, have the most amazing woods and even some burls that you never saw in the "commercial" environment, they are sourced locally by themselves as "treasures" and sold in a very small scale to a very limited amount of people that can normally get, the blanks/woods cut to specific sizes/by request, and for a much fairer prices, in my view...!
Go on eBay, look around and ask question to the vendors there, they not always list everything they have, and many of them actually buy some woods they don't have, as some sort of a "wood collection", a very tinny one on that, no one has ever completed a wood collection, and I met very old people that started young, died of very old age and admitted that, they only touched the surface, with the thousands of samples they gathered in their life time. If you're lucky, they make have what you are looking for, as "excess samples"...!
If you are looking for something specific, ask them if they have it, it may surprise you what the answers will be...!
Good luck,:wink::biggrin:
Cheers
George
