diff --git a/conf/storage-conf.xml b/conf/storage-conf.xml
index 1ddaea46c5..5b9d429a89 100644
--- a/conf/storage-conf.xml
+++ b/conf/storage-conf.xml
@@ -86,8 +86,11 @@
     <!-- Partitioner: any IPartitioner may be used, including your own
          as long as it is on the classpath.  Out of the box,
          Cassandra provides
-         org.apache.cassandra.dht.RandomPartitioner and
-         org.apache.cassandra.dht.OrderPreservingPartitioner.
+         org.apache.cassandra.dht.RandomPartitioner,
+         org.apache.cassandra.dht.OrderPreservingPartitioner, and
+         org.apache.cassandra.dht.CollatingOrderPreservingPartitioner.
+         (CollatingOPP colates according to EN,US rules, not naive byte ordering.
+         Use this as an example if you need locale-aware collation.)
          Range queries require using OrderPreservingPartitioner or a subclass.
 
          Achtung!  Changing this parameter requires wiping your data directories,
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/CollatingOrderPreservingPartitioner.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/CollatingOrderPreservingPartitioner.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..8369cb431b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/CollatingOrderPreservingPartitioner.java
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+/**
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+ * or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+ * distributed with this work for additional information
+ * regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+ * to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+ * "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+ * with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.cassandra.dht;
+
+import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
+import java.text.Collator;
+import java.util.Comparator;
+import java.util.Locale;
+import java.util.Random;
+
+import org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor;
+
+public class CollatingOrderPreservingPartitioner extends OrderPreservingPartitioner
+{
+    static final Collator collator = Collator.getInstance(new Locale("en", "US"));
+
+    private static final Comparator<String> comparator = new Comparator<String>() {
+        public int compare(String o1, String o2)
+        {
+            return collator.compare(o1, o2);
+        }
+    };
+    private static final Comparator<String> reverseComparator = new Comparator<String>() {
+        public int compare(String o1, String o2)
+        {
+            return -comparator.compare(o1, o2);
+        }
+    };
+
+    public Comparator<String> getDecoratedKeyComparator()
+    {
+        return comparator;
+    }
+
+    public Comparator<String> getReverseDecoratedKeyComparator()
+    {
+        return reverseComparator;
+    }
+}
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/OrderPreservingPartitioner.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/OrderPreservingPartitioner.java
index b747850608..7985ea9c27 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/OrderPreservingPartitioner.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/OrderPreservingPartitioner.java
@@ -19,29 +19,23 @@
 package org.apache.cassandra.dht;
 
 import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
-import java.text.Collator;
 import java.util.Comparator;
-import java.util.Locale;
 import java.util.Random;
 
 import org.apache.cassandra.config.DatabaseDescriptor;
 
 public class OrderPreservingPartitioner implements IPartitioner
 {
-    // TODO make locale configurable.  But don't just leave it up to the OS or you could really screw
-    // people over if they deploy on nodes with different OS locales.
-    static final Collator collator = Collator.getInstance(new Locale("en", "US")); 
-
     private static final Comparator<String> comparator = new Comparator<String>() {
         public int compare(String o1, String o2)
         {
-            return collator.compare(o1, o2);
+            return o1.compareTo(o2);
         }
     };
     private static final Comparator<String> reverseComparator = new Comparator<String>() {
         public int compare(String o1, String o2)
         {
-            return -comparator.compare(o1, o2);
+            return o2.compareTo(o1);
         }
     };
 
@@ -126,4 +120,4 @@ public class OrderPreservingPartitioner implements IPartitioner
     {
         return new StringToken(key);
     }
-}
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/StringToken.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/StringToken.java
index caf8374361..3ae1728c6d 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/StringToken.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/dht/StringToken.java
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@
 */
 package org.apache.cassandra.dht;
 
+import org.apache.cassandra.service.StorageService;
+
 public class StringToken extends Token<String>
 {
     public StringToken(String token)
@@ -27,6 +29,7 @@ public class StringToken extends Token<String>
 
     public int compareTo(Token<String> o)
     {
-        return OrderPreservingPartitioner.collator.compare(this.token, o.token);
+        assert StorageService.getPartitioner() instanceof OrderPreservingPartitioner;
+        return StorageService.getPartitioner().getDecoratedKeyComparator().compare(this.token, o.token);
     }
 }