Found a vintage "Old War Horse" leather/canvas strop for $15.00, it's missing some hardware but the leather is soft and pliable with no nicks or cuts and the canvas looks good too. I don't think it will be too hard to fully restore. But does anyone know if it is horse leather? If not is there any way to tell?
Vintage "Old War Horse" strop, is it horse leather?
- Thread starter HippieDave
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What do you mean by restore? Are there cracks or nicks? I saw one for sale on eBay. I bought a little used Illinois horse hide and linen strop for $25 last week.
I've restored tons of old strops (edit - a few) and I don't think I've ever been able to tell for sure if they were horse or cow. You can generally tell if they are "shell" from leather (broadly - the layer under the skin of the horse) and you might be able to tell old shell from newer shell - mostly by the thickness - but I cannot say I'd be able to tell cow from horse.
Does it matter, or are you just interested?
Does it matter, or are you just interested?
I believe they are shell horse hide.
If you have a loupe look at the leather (working side) if you can see a pore structure (pockmarks - small craters) it is cow.
If it looks like a kaleidoscope (without the colors) it is horse. If it is the same on the backside- it is shell - generally.
Hope this helps.
If you have a loupe look at the leather (working side) if you can see a pore structure (pockmarks - small craters) it is cow.
If it looks like a kaleidoscope (without the colors) it is horse. If it is the same on the backside- it is shell - generally.
Hope this helps.
That's really good to know. Thanks.
You're welcome.
Shell has no pore structure because it is the underlying muscle and will be the same on both sides.
Shell has no pore structure because it is the underlying muscle and will be the same on both sides.
That's interesting to know and may explain why some claim to have brought back certain vintage pieces by restoring the backside rather than the original stropping surface.
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- #8
More like clean and oil, no cracks or cuts but it looks like the surface is a little uneven and needs to be flattened.
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- #9
This was a big help. Looked at it with a loupe and compared it to a cow hide strop. It's horse shell. Now I know what to look for if I ever find an old strop at a good price. Thanks ever so much.
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- #10
Doesn't really matter but I've read that some feel horse hide is a bit better than cow hide. I have a newish $15 cow hide and thought a vintage horse hide for $15 would be nice to have.
Alan, all my vintage strops are shell and look virtually identical front to back although the back is not sanded to as fine a grit.. Generally the best side put forward. Restoring from the backside can be done with any hide I would suspect.
People who oil the back are doing so to prevent hardship with the front side.
I think it is best applied to both - sparingly, for full penetration as opposed to only the back and getting to penetrate all the way to the front.
It really is quite different under the loop isn't it? You can see where every hair was.
Kaleidoscope is the only thing I can think of to describe shell but it is very different from other hides.
Thanks for the info Paul.
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- #13
Yes, under a loupe, side by side with a known piece of cow hide (even a leather belt) the difference is very easy to see.
In the interests of clarification, are we talking about horse shell here or horsehide? A piece of horsehide I have on hand shows noticeable traces of the spine on the stropping surface--i.e. having been taken from the exterior of the horse. And under an 11x loupe, an unworn part of the stropping surface near the hardware looks more like snakeskin compared to cowhide, but definitely has hairs protruding from less evident pores. Elsewhere in the worn areas, the hairs are no longer visible and one would be hard-pressed to determine pores there next to cowhide.
Shell.
It has been some time since I have held a horsehide strop that was not Shell.
A Horsehide strop does look like Shell on 1 side (kaleidoscope) but the two sides of it would not be identical.
Does the one you have look identical on both sides?
Years ago we used Barbasol with lanolin to break in baseball gloves and was curious if this product would be suitable for strops?
Can't say it does to the naked eye. I have handled a number of horse hides and horse butts as prepared in larger sections, and they all match this one in that marks to the spine are noticeable on the finished surface and the less-finished surface is more suede-like or toothy. In comparison, a genuine Horween shell strop is tighter overall, on both sides, although one side is far more finished than the other.
So I'm now wondering if the distinction between shell and horsehide might be analogous to the first and second slices of bovine leather, whereby horsehide would equate to the first surface slice and shell would equate to the second, deeper slice.
Possibly.
Remember that the Horween is also cordovan which is a lengthy process involving oils and pressing so the final product will look slightly different.
When you say "marks to the spine" what exactly are you referring too?
If it is not identical in structure on both sides then it is most likely not Shell.
If it doesn't remind you of a Kaleidoscope then it is not even Horse.
Remember that the Horween is also cordovan which is a lengthy process involving oils and pressing so the final product will look slightly different.
When you say "marks to the spine" what exactly are you referring too?
If it is not identical in structure on both sides then it is most likely not Shell.
If it doesn't remind you of a Kaleidoscope then it is not even Horse.
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If I can get to the workshop in the next few days I'll do some side by side photo n microscope pics of shell, horse hide, cow and other materials for reference.
It's horsehide. Just compared it to some cowhide by the light of day, and while I understand your pockmark pore description about the cowhide, the kaleidoscope description for horse shell escapes me here, I would say this horsehide's surface is more like snakeskin. By marks to the spine, I mean that there is a patterning on the strop surface that indicates the animal's exterior anatomy, marks that are lighter than the adjacent areas, one running straight across (the spine) and the others moving symmetrically away from it towards the top and bottom. This one presumably being European-sourced, I've also seen it with American-sourced horsehide.
Hope you can do this. I'm using an 11x achromatic triplet loupe, so if there's any way you can do some low-mag shots in this range too, I'd appreciate it.
