I got nothing against country buyers,they are an asset to young trappers like pawnee said.When the price of fur drops,sometimes they pay too much for fur.Many went out of business in the past when they paid too much for fur and the prices of all their collections dropped at the auctions.When the bottom fell out of the Otter market a lot of the southern ones went belly up.

Bryan produces an unreal amount of fur really something to see. I think he buys a lot of carcass but I know he will buy finished too.

Nope that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the middle man middleman. The ones who constantly buy fur that nafa should be protecting for the trapper. Then nafa doesn’t have to store free and they make good money on the per skin fees. For some reason if these speculators do it then it’s “the market”.

I get along just fine with our local buyer. Sometimes we can agree on a price and sometimes we don't. No hard feelings. He is there to make money. Sometimes I think I can do better and sometimes I'm right.

Phil has made a lot of Trap collectors happy with the stuff he has taken down out of Canada over the years.
How's about "lunch" for a 4 1/2 newhouse was the usual going price.

When I visited the auction I recognized a couple “country buyers” rubbing elbows with the China man. Figured it was a good place to stir up business. I would guess the margins at around 25% for those fellas. Not too bad especially if you can turn goods over fAst

Sask,

The country buyer was a mainstay of the fur industry for a long time in the USA. But most are gone now. The market ups and downs make it just too hard for any business to stay in business for very long.

Most were very small businesses run by the owner. He operated out of his home or had a shop located next to his house. Some had small fur farms on the property. Or sold trapping supplies.

It was a great experience especially for young trappers to visit the country buyer and watch him grade the pelts and make an offer to buy them. It was just cool as (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) if you were a kid with a few pelts. With a lot of fur it got more serious. The buyer would sometimes get on the phone with his buyer in New York or someplace and talk about your collection before making an offer. Some areas had several buyers within an hours drive of home. So you could get several bids and be home by noon. Some buyers would be hot and have an order to fill and exceed your expectations. Others were not competitive at all. The advantage for the trapper was to get paid right away. And visiting the guy was fun and buying supplies and learning a lot about fur handling and maybe even getting some hints on good places to trap.

It is too bad most country buyers are long gone. But the few that are left are an asset to the trapper who lives nearby.

Much of the fur in the lower 48 is taken by guys and gals that only kill a dozen or less animals a year, in the past often by school age kids, country buyers have been the traditional way for these small producers to market the furs. As someone mentioned often "in the round" or "on the cob" carcass animals, frozen whole or sold the day of catch and just as often green skins "in the grease" that have not been scraped or dried.
Without these small and middle sized collectors all the thousands of people that currently sell the coon caught in the hen house or the five fox trapped after school would not likely sell those furs at all. For example, I have to drive over an hour each way to meet a pickup truck and when gas is ~$30 for the trip, it would not make sense to haul two coyotes or six 'coons and then pay all the fees to sell at auction, when I can sell them 10 minutes from home for a reduced (cost of gas?) amount.
as Wissmiss said many country buyers have arrangements with the major buyers, and several that I've known dealt with the foreign brokers (mostly Greek) directly. Also some small buyers may sell to a larger buyer who then resells to the big buyers or overseas. As Boco said some do ship to the big auctions. And at least one country buyer that I know buys most of his carcass animals with intent to market them in the taxidermy markets, while shipping the remainder to a larger buyer. There are no real "truths" about what the country buyers do with "all" the fur they handle, a buyer might send some fur to each of several outlets, or might have some tanned and sell those in the craft markets or as decorations.

That's what its all about-options for the trapper.The more marketing options available the better.Back in the day when I was a kid trapping, there was a local fur buyer in almost every town here,and the Northern stores (North west company) would either buy your fur or take it in on consignment for HBC auction.There was also a travelling fur buyer that would set up in a hotel room and mail you his time and schedule.Then there was the OTA(Now FHA) fur pick up 3 or 4 times a year.

An asset to all the wild fur industry. When all the country buyers are gone our trapping will be gone very soon after. With no local market for those two or three after school or before work catches and the added cost and inconvenience of shipping, plus the uncertainty of auction prices plus the certainty of auction fees; it won't take many years for 90% of the small and intermittent fur producers to quit and the high numbers guys are so few that no one will protest the trapping bans.

Finally, some good perspective.

Nafa and fha arent the only game in town. Sorry you are forced to trade with them

The point is, it is good to have ALL these outlets and options. One may work for one person while another outlet works for the guy next door. You never want to see only one outlet as that has never proven good in business

Everyone needs to sell where it works best for them.

.......what did the second lot sell for? lol with the hundreds of cats there they can only find 10 for a top lot and all the rest sell way below that price? lol..........................maybe that's the only 10 cats that were certified ! lol

Well I guess I'm a country buyer. I buy a few hundred hides every year. Mostly raccoon and mostly from just the local kids around the area. Almost everything I buy goes to NAFA. Normally I can beat the big buyers on my prices paid to Trappers and Hunters. One of the big reasons for this is because I don't have the overhead that petska and groenewold do. And if anybody brings it up that's what I tell them. I've had years where I did it all for free, made zero money. And I've had years where I made an embarrassing amount of money. All I do is speculate.
. Just about everybody who's ever sold to me comes back the next year. It is pretty rare that a person wants to put in the work 2 handle their own fur even rarer somebody wants to take the risk to buy and put up somebody else's shot up mishandled fur. That's where I come in

good read guys lots of places to sell fur is a plus to the guys catching it I agree with tjm

Good friend of mine is a buyer worked for that guy all threw high school still do when he gets swamped and can barely keep his head above water he goes to several state auctions from the Rockies to the swamps of the south basically were ever the broker says to go on top of buying threw his front door of his business at home 99.9 percent of his fur sees the east coast never makes it to canada very valuable asset to the fur world I've seen that man teach so many youngin how to out up fur over the yrs when there gone our boat is floating without a paddle

trapsRus nailed it.

During the fur-boom years there were many country buyers in my area of Pennsylvania. I had many options to sell my fur and word spread quickly about which buyer was paying better prices for which skins.

Most of them are gone now. The two exceptions I can think of in my area are John Epler (Epler Fur Company) and Dave Rodgers (Rodgers Hides and Supplies). I think both are members here on Tman.

There used to be a decent number of buyers that would show up at the PTA 's District Fur Sales throughout the state but in the last several years (since the market depression began) I've noticed that number declining as well.

I have been selling to NAFA the last several years but have not been happy with their performance. I began exploring other options for the sale of my furs. This season I made an arrangement with an out-of-state furrier. We were both happy with the deal that was struck.

I believe options such as that will be the way I try to sell my fur in the future. The more options for sale a trapper has available the better off he/she will be.

I agree with most of what you said. I disagree with fur buyers not preferring to buy finished goods. There is a smaller margin until the carcass and green stuff has hidden issues and after skinning or scraping it is not what they thought they bought. Buying finished fur allows them to see what they buy so there are fewer surprises. Also in this market, it is most profitable for the trapper to sell finished goods. This year carcass coon were selling for 4 or 5 bucks. With averages on finished coon 12 .00 and up you can average 8.00 each more by finishing. Simply skinning them was worth 4 dollars more than carcass goods. So yes you are giving over half of the fur value away by selling carcass goods. LLL

IMO they like to buy finished goods but don't pay enough to get a lot of it. If carcass coons are bought for 4, then add 4 for skinning fleshing and stretching (assuming he is hiring help) then sold for 12. He is not going to pay anywhere near 12 for stretched skins. If he does it will be at an auction someplace because a broker hired him to buy the fur. Told him what size/grade/species for X amount. Buyer gets paid a flat rate.