A couple of years ago, my mom gave me her grandfather's strop (he died in the mid-1920s), which was in pretty rough shape. It had spent many decades folded in half and was really, really dirty--both the leather and the linen. But the leather was twice as thick as any of the modern strops I've had and had no nicks, and though the linen was filthy, it was otherwise intact. I didn't want to take a chance on screwing it up while trying to restore it, so I sent it to Razor Emporium; they did a great job on it. And WOW. The shaves I get with this strop are just great--better than any shaves I've gotten from modern strops. And I really like that it was my great-grandfather's. I don't have any "before" pictures, but I'll try to post some "after" shots in a day or two.