Thread: NOS strops with wax-saturated fabric

I recently bought some NOS vintage strops. I am fairly certain they were salesman's samples.
Nice strops, obviously unused and stored decently.

However, on a few, the fabric component was strange. very stiff and seemingly saturated with wax. You could bend the strop and it would stay bent! I had never seen this before, did not like stropping on them either.

I decided to attempt to remove it so I took the fabric off this PJM Merit and rolled it into a saucepan with water which I brought to a boil. The wax would melt and come to the top so I began trying to skim it off. I was making such a mess, I took it from the pot and laid it flat and scraped it with a spatula. LOTS of wax was coming off that way.

Changed the water and repeated several times and finally got the bulk of it out, about a half-cup, in my estimate.

Now, it looks and feels right. Has anyone seen this?