You likely didn't know it when you clicked on this listing, but you've stumbled upon the sales offerings of what is extremely likely to be the most straight-razor-centric and wholly obsessed human in the Western Hemisphere. European razors ceasing production would likely affect house/home in Jax Bch - so you can be sure goals are to keep this great tradition alive! Sadly, objectively false yet routine statement from some highest level devotees in America are large reason their industry's in great decline, along with life trends like those damned beards. You don't look better, by the way; you look stupid. Down with beards!

The Herold #155Ri is a nice sized piece of the cowhide, with a swiveling hook at the top, a D-ring at the bottom, and end caps sewn in to the stropping leather.

YOU STROP THE RAZOR UPON THE LEATHER YOU SEE SURROUNDED BY THE ENDCAPS WITH THE “PRIMA RINDLEDER GERMANY” AND “HEROLD SOLINGEN GERMANY” WRITING. Nothing can be of use on the back with a straight razor; get a good strip of denim, another cheaper strop, or an old seat belt slice and use that as your ‘prep’ side to clean the edge before taking it to this leather, if you must.

About “Herold” Hanging Cowhide Strops

The team making these strops are in Solingen as a continuous concern some 90+ years (and mostly content to produce “OEM” strops on behalf of other firms that you’ve seen under many brandmarks), and own several patents related to stropmaking. Like all these products from Solingen, they tend to favor the “split-side” style strop, meaning you’re not stropping on a refined skin (“grain-side”, as with horsebutt or English Bridle American strops) but rather the ‘underside’ of the skin.

There’s no right answer; I generally feel a grain side’s more durable but less delicate to the touch, and delicacy in strops certainly helps tell my brain what’s going on on the razor’s edge. Both styles have their fans, so we try to source each.

Their whole line does best with the Dovo yellow paste, but does not require application initially; they’re good to go when you get ’em. However, if you live in an arid climate, we recommend you purchase the Dovo yellow-banded tube of leather fat immediately.

The ‘first’ slice (furthest from the former outside position of the animal) of split-side tanning’s the regular cowhide (“Rindleder”)…and that’s why you’ll see the “back” of those (the side you would NOT be stropping upon) looks like a dried-out version of their front; that's the style here. It is the most pliant/flexible of the leathers they produce, the king of yielding sensory input to the edge condition, but as the thinnest it is also certainly the least durable that they offer, too, and is reputedly less flat and smooth than that which is “below” it (but if that part’s true, which I don’t doubt, I sure can’t detect it in use to any degree).

The ‘second’ slice (below the ‘cowhide’ layer, meaning that which is immediately adjacent to the outer grain of the bovine) is the “Russian” type leather-more durable, supple, and luxurious than the standard-issue cowhide, and supposedly flatter.