Well, yes. The Illinois 827 has nice leather and works. But it is flimsy, and feels cheap. The more up market strops feel better, and that is basically it. Some of our users use different strops during the same session. This reminds me of discussions about 30k+ hones - to each his own...

The only strop I know that is markedly different is in a totally different league price wise.

Regards,
Robin