Jimmy, I read what I said in a post by Tony Miller in this thread:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...p-numbers.html
Perhaps he was only referring to the Illinois 827. I also found a more general, vintage, SPR thread about Russian strops where they discussed this issue in more detail:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ian-strop.html
They go over several "definitions" for the Russian strop (tanning, origin, compression, ribbing, etc...) and agree that they are rougher. Perhaps you can increase my understanding of strops a bit here, thanks.
Al raz.