Thread: Did Illinois ever make Cordovan strops?

Maybe Neil will chime in,I would like to know myself.

It looks like Cordovan came from the the region of Spain where it originally began. Also interestingly goat was originally used.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Maybe Neil will chime in,I would like to know myself.

Advanced search ..... key word , cordovan, member Neil Miller ;

http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...hell-mean.html

And from a different thread .......

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Strictly speaking, Jimmy, 'latigo' is a method of tanning applied to cowhide - not all cowhide receives the latigo treatment! There are various types of latigo, all of which are re-tanned processes, such as mineral-tanned/oil veg-tanned/oil or a combination of both. The mineral salts can be alum, chromium, or a combination of both - they give the leather its characteristic strength. The pupose of the oil (or oil/wax) infusion is to impart durability, particularly where the leather is to be used outdoors and withstand rain, etc. It also gives the leather a slight 'rub-off' problem, similar to fully waxed/oiled english bridle leather (another form of cowhide), but which is of little consequence. The oil also imparts a draw, which in some cases can be quite heavy. The more mineral-tanned, stiff latigos have only a slight draw though and do not appear to be very oily at all.

Cowhide can just be tanned with vegetable tannins and used as a strop. Where the top surface has been mechanically milled-off to regularise it, it can be left as-is and have a softish, suede-like nap, or the grain pattern is articially imprinted in it and the surface re-treated to make it look natural. The prima-rindleder and buff-coloured juchten strop leathers are examples of this type of cowhide.

Hosehide/butt was mentioned - this usually involves two distinctly different types of leather and one sub-set. The first is shell cordovan which is richly hand-dyed, hand-rubbed, has a luxurious feel and very slight draw. The other is any part of the horse (some of the thicker so-called cordovan comes from near the shoulder area and is not really genuine shell cordovan which is quite thin these days) and which is vegetable-tanned and left undyed. It can be quite stiff, unlike the very pliable shell, and does seem to have a fair abrasive quality even though it has very light draw. The sub-set is this same type of leather that has undergone the full shell cordovan tanning and which approximates shell in many ways, but once again it is not shell but a cheaper leather from another part of the horse.

Regards,
Neil

The leather guy I spoke to once told me that Cordovan (or something like it) is/was the name of a place in Spain that gave its name to the process used to tan and colour the leather they used to make there. This was centuries ago, apparently.

Cordovan is also the name of a colour. One of my cousins is a fashion designer and she mentioned it once as an autumnal thing.

So if I had to guess, I'd guess for leather it is a process. Possibly a process only applied to shell-type leather.

James.

Originally Posted by aa1192

It looks like Cordovan came from the the region of Spain where it originally began. Also interestingly goat was originally used.

IIRC Neil Miller has mentioned that this tanning process to produce Cordovan leather was brought to the region of Spain now known as Andalucía. Cordoba is a city in this region of Spain for which the process was named, I believe, Córdoba, Andalusia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

Bob

I think the issue is the term cordovan has two meanings. For instance you can buy a pair of shoes with cordovan finish which is just the color-a shade of brown. It also has a technical meaning referring to the actual tanning and processing procedure and to complicate things further it seems to be used interchangeably with "shell".

Originally Posted by aa1192

I just recently purchased a vintage Illinois strop and based on feel I'm wondering if it might be Cordovan. It is a "Barber's Delight" and Scottish Tanned leather; I don't recall the model number just now. Did Illinois ever use shell leather back in the day?

Shell is very small piece of the horse, so it's always been special, commanding higher prices and labeled accordingly to justify the price. If it only says 'scottish tanned' bit not shell it's almost certainly not shell.

My two user strops, I think they are shell, cordovan? no clue

Cordovan simply means 'of Cordoba' - a place in Spain. Shells are the two ovals found under the skin in a horses butt. As the skin has to be removed to get at the fibrous, muscular shell, it is not really leather at all. That is why it is found in such a small, localised area and why it is so expensive.

Today, shell refers to the (lets call it for simplicity's sake) leather, and cordovan refers to the tanning and finishing stages. It is vegetable tanned (some legend in his own lunch time writing in stropping forum recently and giving us the benefit of his microscopic leather lore erroneously led himself to believe otherwise), then hot stuffed with oils and waxes, then stretched out on a glass frame, dyed and hand polished.

The spaish city of Cordoba also gives us the rather old fashioned name of cordwainer, still used in the rarefied world of the gentlemans outfitter in places like Saville Row when I was a schoolboy), for makers of fine gentlemans shoes. In this application, cordovan was any fine soft expensive leather, not just horse.

Cordwainer seems a long way from Cordoba, until you realise that it the anglicised version of a french word for shoemaker - cordonnier, introduced after the norman conquest (1066 and all that).

'Cordwainer' goes back to the 12th century in england, but the cordovan process was introduced into Spain in the 11th or 10th century, and originally it was goat that was used. The process was not even the same, the leather being tawed instead of tanned. In tawing alum is used, and it is an imperfect process inasmuch as it can be reversed by aperiod of wetting, giving us back a soft slimey skin that stinks as it corrupts. Fortunately Moors had a natural immunity to stinks being brought up in hovels and tents with all manner of beasts and a seeming disregard for form of lavatory paper other than the hand, hopefully with a bit of not too gritty sand in it. Doesn't get that wet in the Moorish part of Spain and North Africa eitner.

Over time kid and pigskin were used and the dried leathers were gilded and painted and used as wall hangings.

So, originally it was a whitish tawed leather, then a maroon goat or sheep leather, then a gilded and painted goat, sheepskin or pigskin, then the burgundy colored shell leather.

Today - and for quite a considerable time - it comes in black, tan, chestnut and burgundy.

The cordovan process, or part of it, anyway, has been used for other leathers. Horse hide (thicker and considerably cheaper), and so-called steer cordovan, which is even cheaper cowhide given the cordovan treatment.

Scottish tanneries were qite famous for producing top notch shell leather. Interestingly, most shell frm that time is much thicker than we find today, around 4 to 4.5mm thick as opposed to 2mm thick now. One can only conjecture why. Then, the norse was a beast of burden. It pulled canal boats along, delivered kegs to pubs, ploughed fields, trucked supplies to rail yards, provided cabs and long distance transport, and was worked till its great heart burst and it dropped dead in the street.

Tho occurrence was so commom, especially in great cities like London and NY, that the knacker man would not come until putrefaction set in - easier to chop them up and move them tben when they are stiff, Sometimes their bellies ruptured from gases engendered of corruption, while they lay dead in the street cushioned by the vast amounts of excrement produced in life. Cities were not pleasant in tbe heat os summer.

So, they were very robust beasts, all their muscles at peak condition. Also, tbe finish of the old shell strops was not glassy and flat for the most part. Its a bit of a mystery, but must have its answer in what prevailed at the time, and like today, marketing probably had more tnan a little to do with it.

Regards,
Neil (often stroppy) Miller

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

My two user strops, I think they are shell, cordovan? no clue

I'd bet they are what they say they are. As I posted earlier, I think before WWII there were a lot more horses in use, and a lot more slaughtered when they were no longer useful. Glue and leather goods were probably the main uses, along with dog food. So chances are the shell was more plentiful, and therefore more reasonably priced. Neil will correct me if I'm (shudder) wrong ......