Quote Originally Posted by entropy1049 View Post
To avoid confusion:

Shell is not hide. It is a membrane that resides under the hide on the horse's butt. So horsehide is not horse shell. Kanayama uses horse shell. It is not "Cordovan" per se' as Cordovan is a specific finishing process applied to horse shell. Kanayama uses a proprietary process to finish his shell, which results in an excellent, silky finish, but not "Cordovan". Horween uses the historically accepted Cordovan finishing process and therefore, Horween horse shell can be properly referred to as "Cordovan Shell".

Hoping this helps.
Speaking of Kanayama strops...they had a sale on awhile ago for the #3, got one and it's fantastic, really nice.

Went back to think of getting one for a friend, and sheesh, pretty much all of them are out of stock now...I'd heard that they were getting harder to come by due to the makers age, are we seeing the last of these strops?