Straight from a FHA grader

Greg knows coon. Sam Wood in this video was trying to put words in Greg's mouth on the "blue" coon though. LLL

Great video and it reflects what I learned back in the early 80's. My self, H Dam & Richie W. (region 1 NYSTA) took over 900 raccoons into the fur district on west 30th street NYC. We went to George I Fox who recommended us to a hatter down the street. He bought every coon for $27.50 straight run. He opened the coon just like the buyer on the video, He only wanted the flanks, about 4 square inches on each side, silver contrast color, did not care about the leather color at all, the rest of the hide was resold to other dressers. Maybe 5 or 6 times., He then sent us to a coat maker who was matching strips fox for different coats, each strip was only an inch wide, the fur he did not want was resold to another dresser. on on on it went till the dresser that made the fur lining of the pockets got the scraps. We met 5 dressers that day. We learned alot. Please see the link below to the fur district in NYC, you can zoom into street level for a good look, not what it once was but its still there. We also sold to Papas Furs on Long Island. Hatters wanted thin leather and silver contrast, for their hats that they made for the ladies. Enjoy and again great video.

Riding on a subway with that many coons hides was interesting, people steered clear of us and the cops shook us down on the street until they figured we were legit, then they thought we were pretty cool.

I also took Brad Rendell and his Silver Fox (200 +) (from his farm) to J Papas, he had every hide booked onto multiple coats, we meet the people that were buying the coats at the same time we were selling the fur. It was a good day for all parties. Brad got over $100 each hide in cash back then.


https://www.google.com/maps/search/USA++FUR++NEW+YORK+CITY/@40.7482391,-73.9942634,487m/data=!3m1!1e3

And all coon aren't sliver flanked beauties some If not most never make that grade no matter when they are caught.

Greg knows fur and you can take that to the bank.

Good stuff.that big guy talks too much. But great info from greg

Absolutely, he is a master handler as well. He made me realize how far in the dark ages I was with push pins, when I first saw him staple Coons onto the boards, and use the cardboard tail inserts to finish the tail. Watching him also taught me how to flesh in the most efficient way. Crazy good fur handler.

Amen
Day 1 here is around October 15. They don’t look like any of those then. Them good stale leathered coon don’t arrive till November in central/southern WI.

No denying Greg is a highly skilled fur handler

So do we start telling the fur buyer he is full of it when he tries to discount blue leather coons? Pull out this video and show it to him and say “now give me regular coon money for my blue coon.

I'm not sold on this Blue coon BS. Did any one try and deal any blue coon through FHA?

Coon that are slight blues are better fur quality wise than late caught coon. That may be what he was trying to say. After about Christmas here, those flanks really start to break down, and the necks start to get beat up.

Yeah Dave I feel like that is what the grader was saying but the other guy kept insisting there is no difference
In a blue leather coon and a tan leather.
Beav I’m not sold on it either. I’m still not starting early It really doesn’t matter what that grader said unless you are selling through FH. Otherwise what your buyer says goes.

Absolutely also better color There is difference between starting early when the fur is there and starting too early Are you going to lose a few dollars on some coon,sure. But getting after them on land before the corn is out and also beating winter weather you come out way ahead on our Minnesota coon. Common sense goes a long way ,don’t trap if the coon look terrible. Pretty simple

I've seen this video before . Appx. 31 seconds into it Gregg says coon any darker than the one he is handling would be graded down . Sam seems to ignore that .

That slate coon in the video will go I-II at FHA. I have sent my share of them there. LLL

The more one reads and hears about what is prime the narrower we see the season is. I guess I need to look at the calendar and mark my trap line for coon here in eastern WI for the 4 days before our deer season starts and the 10 days after it ends. Before that they are marginal and later after two big storms they are breaking up. If the really good ones can't get sold for more than $18 why should I be embarrassed to ship up some $9 coons that I caught 3 days too early or 7 days too late?

Bryce