I have a question for those of you who buy fur. I’m looking into being a buyer next season mostly for rats and mink, my question is who do you buyers sell to? Big places like FHA or do you need to sell to someone else? Thanks.

Various options.

- Fur Harvesters in Canada

- large buyers like Groenwald

- develop your own overseas market

Each option has pros and cons.

If you’ve never bought fur before, you might want to get some experience grading fur.

The good thing is, you are starting out when prices are low. You can’t get hurt as bad as when prices are high.

Make sure you invest only as much as you can afford to lose.

I hear "sell to" and FHA, and formerly NAFA, quite a bit, I'm sure you know it's ship to, and there are no guarantee's. That is a good option but it's tough to get a feel for what to pay, when you have no commitment as to a price. This is where wissmiss advice to not invest more than you can afford to lose shines!

Safest bet starting out is see if you can get with a bigger country dealer that will work with you and give you an idea of what they will pay you, figure out what you need to make and price accordingly.

Not a "buyer", although I am licensed to buy fur, as a tanner. I've been taking lessons from a couple buyers for a few years now on grading fur. There's a lot more to it than most would think. There are very few trappers I've met in the last 9 years who have half a clue about how to grade their own fur. There can be a substantial amount of risk in buying fur. The risk increases greatly if you don't know what you're buying.

You are asking a key question though. Buying fur is the easy part. Moving what you've purchased is something you have to look very closely at.

There were a lot more "fur buyers" around when NAFA was afloat. Many of them gambled and lost.

It's a great time to try, if you have disposable income. The learning curve is going pretty cheap right now.

He (Nathaniel Wyeth)was a learned innocent, as rank a greenhorn as ever tried the trade. He was like a novelist of passion, about to encounter a passionate woman. He had no idea how complexly organized the mountain trade was, nor how great the margin must be allowed for the incalculable variants of chance, and immediate circumstance. He had no accurate idea of how many persons were competing in it this very year (1831). He had far from enough capital to stay in business. There was no one to tell him the realistic details of trading with the Indians, or to inform him that though the companies were cutting each others throats, they automatically helped each other cut the throat of any serious newcomer.


- Across The Wide Missouri

Bernard DeVoto


























Prayers Sent..........

Too funny Marty. Though I somewhat know it to be true.

Keith: yea I know that I ship it to them and don’t technically sell to them but that’s just how it came out

Marty always has a Better way with words then I do, but he pretty much sums it up and thing haven’t changed much in 200 years. Wissmiss also broke it down to, there are about a dozen brokers/ bigger buyers in North America that have their own over seas connections sum buy from smaller dealers some don’t. You can ship to the one remaining fur house but you lose all control of the final outcome. You can try to find your own over seas connections but prepare to spend 10’s of thousands of dollars doing it to find people who will take all grades and types of furs. The good news is to buy rats and mink at this time it doesn’t take a lot of money to buy them relative to other species and other times in the market. The bad news it’s going to take a lot of money to buy enough rats and mink to scratch out a profit because the margins on both are razor thin

A chest freezer clear full of good rat skins MIGHT be a money maker. A buck a skin on that many would be some real profit. I think its POSSIBLE you could triple your money. If the freezer was outside in the shade of a pavilion style roof in a northern state, electricity cost would not be terrible.

that sounds good, but they would barely pay for the labor, and logistics to get them in that freezer, unless you have a runaway ranch mink boom again.



and just like firewood, every time, you touch them, you lose money.

If you got the freezer for free and it didn't stop working and spoil all the rats. lol

Also I think you need to drink pretty heavily to be a good fur buyer. I don't know how else you'd sleep at night with that much money wrapped up in a bunch of furs that seemingly at the drop of a hat can be just about completely worthless and for years!

Is it better to have never loved at all,, than it is to have loved and lost ??? Lol
The fade has been to buy in the carcass put them up sell that way. That is a way to defray losses out your labor.
It's a option not yet discussed

It's the option suggested to me, should I ever delve into the world of speculation, chance, and treachery.

the key to success is have the fur sold before you buy it! know where its going and for what price. speculation is dangerous, but sometime the gamble pays off good luck.

And I thought all the fur buyers were getting rich robbing us poor trappers....

I did this this year after I finished trapping for the season. Not a big lot of fur but enough to start. See how it goes lol.
That being said it’s (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) hard to tell a green bellied coyote if it’s frozen solid lol

If you cant fully evaluate a pelt for whatever reason,you have to assume the worst and pay accordingly.

Absolutely agree. And that’s what I did, it’s very easy to get burned if you can’t see everything.