So it turns out I don't suck at stopping, I merely suck at buying strops.

Since about April I've been using a Illinois 127 strop bought off of amazon.

For the life of me I couldn't strop a razor, and I miserably watched a new Dovo honed by Gssixgun melt from perfect to butterknife. I assumed it was simply my inexperience.

Nope.

I just got a dual English Bridle leather strop from Larry at whipped dog, and it was like magic. the draw just felt perfect, the sound was exactly like the MP3 on the wiki, and the blade improved remarkably.

Now that I look at the old stop, I'm kind of mad that someone would sell this POS. It's hard as a rock no matter how much oil or cream I rub into the thing, the leather is uneven, and it has crinkles running top to bottom.

Now the problem may not be with the Illinois strop, it may be that it came from Amazon, and the supplier was a shoddy bastard that was comfortable sending out crap merchandise that sat in a warehouse in Haiti for a decade.

This is a case of "All's well that ends well!"

I am glad you have found the solution and thanks for warning others about your experience.
Happy Shaving!

Illinois strops are perfectly good strops, and a good value for the money.
While it's possible you got one that had a defect in the leather, other beginners should not shy away from purchasing one.

I suspect it was improperly stored for a long period of time or possibly quality control missed a bad piece of leather. I'm not implying that all of the strops are garbage, only that THIS strop was garbage.

You keep missing the the letter r in strop. Its strop not stop. Just wanted to shout that out

That's just the price I'm willing to pay to eat crumbly things over my keyboard.

I had a Illinois 361 strop that worked perfectly fine but the draw was all wrong for me, i need a heavy draw and the Illinios was very lite. Glad you found one that works well for you.

My Illinois 127 was a bit light in the draw department until I lathered it up with Cade soap lather. Now it's a draw machine.

I have seen it more that couple times on here that the Illinois strops are good strops that just tend to need to be broken in a little. I think they use a different tanning method that makes their strops a little bit harder then most, which also gives them lighter draw.

Consider bombing the no good strop with a hard rub from a light sandpaper, followed by 2 heavy applications of heavily rubbed in shaving soap. Rub both coats in with a rough dry washcloth until flat. Make sure that you rub off all the excess.

make sure it's dry, then start stropping.