Interesting film about brush making.
https://youtu.be/zKqfC0E82gU

I wonder why thy call them sable when they are actually made out of kolinsky. Kolinsky are more like a mink/ferret like member of the weasel family. I suppose "sable" sounds better though.

Fascinating ! And those aren't the only brushes that are custom and very expensive. Though the guard hair may vary among species, Asian long brushes, and the best pin striping brushes , long and tapered to hold lots of paint when fully loaded for long continuous lines, are astounding in their quality and long life.

And all out of the real thing....fur. How about that.

In the video, they specified the Mustela Sibirica weasel , a beauty of a bright gold fellow. The art pic they showed was absolutely terrible ...so I found some photos . Interesting animal. They only use the guard hair off the tail.

Look at those lovely full fluffed tails...like marten. The hair costs three times the price of gold by weight.

Jack and a couple other guys will love this info.

As one who has used all manner of brushes, I can attest, you get what you pay for.

Thanks AM, for the share.

Interesting. I remember a few years back we were talking about the importance / value of marten tails in pelt prep on a thread here. I made a bunch of phone calls and sent emails trying to find out if the tails actually added any value to the pelt. The auction houses were hesitant to say much, but I did finally get enough information to figure out that at least some are used in paint brushes.

Yukon254 the quick grading starts at the tail because it is the last area to mature in priming. When you can see through the hairs it an early caught. So the importance of slitting and forming comes into better grading properly. and it is only the few areas you can see the skin for primeness.

Had to go look at my wife's brushes ( which I dare never touch) and realize why she got mad at her dad for using one to touch-up some chips in his car.

Thanks for pulling this gem up.

The tails of sable are used to make the very expensive schtreimel(Jewish religeous headdress) schtreimels are also made from the tails of fisher and mink.
A sable tail schtreimel used in religious ceremony costs upwards of $5000.lesser cost every day schtreimels are made from the tips of fox tails.Many of the Hasidic jews have both.

Lets open an auction house in Israel!

About30 years ago the Cooperative Extension Service brought a guy in here to teach people to make sable hair brushes. They were saying how it would create a booming cottage industry.

I took the class with several others but when it came time to bring in your own marten and start plucking the tail, no one was interested. Of course that was back when marten were worth a decent price