15 buyers, 93 lots of fur

Thanks cfowler

Ground hogs did well. The mink prices were the lowest I ever saw.

Ground hogs are worth what raccoons are worth now? I'll be a whistle-pig skinner. Who'd have thunk that.

Nice castor prices!

Groundhogs even brought more than male mink on average. Now that's a crazy fur market if I ever saw one.

They did as good as coon. And the coon market Is advancing?

Do they still make shoestrings out of groundhog hides or what?

Was GFW there? Not looking for coat coon at this time? Maybe? Heard of double digit sales on bigger collections here in IA yesterday. Not the case last week. Not knocking Southern fur but those buyers down in Southern MO have been right at that price for smaller sized coon all season. Talked to a friend of mine who buys a lot of fur and he said he can sell smaller coon at lower prices but had no outlet for my bigger, heavier skins. This has been his stance all season. He also buys coyotes and said he has bought small coon to buy folks coyote and pitched the coon when they left. Geography plays a role in all fur as you know. I would never ship my coon to SHAFTA from Texas for instance. Zip code graders. LLL

We were in MO. We have lots of coons, but we don't produce many big or sort-of heavy coon. You know that though. Based on the prices I received for mine, I would say there is still some market for better coons. My prices:
4X boars $11
3X boars $8.25
3X sows and damaged boars $4.75
2X boars $5.50
2X sows and damaged boars $4.50
ave. $6.77

I didn't keep stuff under 29". I trapped coons to gain access to properties to trap coyotes, my agreements with LO's. Caught over 200. Sold 112. They were truly "gas money coons". I was happy to have them, and satisfied with the price. Is it a good price? NO! I didn't go to the sale thinking my coons were gonna ave. that well. I know the market doesn't really want sows, and no market wants any sort of damage to the leather. I sold the better goods of what I caught. A lot of it has to do with presentation. Fur-handling and the like.

I sold 46 rats. Mostly all prime. ALL 15" and above. $4.75ea. Really wanted $5, took the $4.75. Caught them while trying to catch coyotes.

Sold 46 coyotes. All MO coyotes.
11 @ $61
11 @ $47
14 @ $46
10 @ $5
ave. $40.67
Advise going into the market was, "if they got some fur, skin 'em", so I did. Those $5 ones were rough. Some got chewed on by hunting dogs, before the owners could get there and get them pulled off. Couple got blasted by shotguns by hunters that came upon them quail/rabbit hunting. You get the picture.

I wish they wouldn't post about the ground hogs. It's a simple supply and demand thing though, now that the cat's outta the bag. There was only 2 groundhogs, there was 3,121 coons. If you was there for groundhogs, you only had a couple chances. If you was there for coons, chances were, someone would give you some. That don't even take into consideration the fine fur quality of MO groundhogs. Nor the toughness of the leather. It's a regional thing we like to call the "wood-chuck hole". Dead center of the US, the finest groundhogs in the world are caught. I expect outta state trappin' licenses are gonna soar now. Dang it!

I put-up all my fur.

cfowler Thanks for taking the time to break down the numbers. The explanation on price on the coon was very good.

I don't think most understand how much JUNK is brought to these sales which drives down the average. Seeing your price's for well put up fur makes it all look different. Sad times though that mink are that cheap.

The top end of the coyotes and castor was the highlight for sure.

It was obvious that there was really only 1 buyer there who was wanting coon, and he wasn’t going to fight for them. You look and it says we had 16 buyers or whatever. Very deceiving. Take out the taxidermy and tanning buyers, the junk buyer, and the bargain shoppers, and we basicly had 3 fur buyers there. One of them was pretty much only after coyotes and one of the other 2 left early. Our sale has changed a lot as far as the composition of the buyers. For years we’d have 6 or 8 buyers who were interested in every species and would set at the auction table start to finish. When Bud Keller, Don Viers, Joe Duree, Lucky Hoffman, Paul Mershmann, Ernie from Stark Fur, Terry Wynn, and 8 or 10 other buyers were at the same auction it was game on. Lots of competition and personality conflicts and egos that make a fur auction a fine way to sell. The auction is a shadow of what it was just a few years ago. Almost all of the buyers that I listed have passed away, went broke, or just quit. Really our auction is a shadow of its former self from as far as the buyers. I’m not knocking the buyers that show up these days. Just saying the competitors aren’t there like they used to be.

Of course Missouri coon vary quite a bit North to South. Before I took a couple butt kickings from NAFA and quit shipping to them 85% of my coon from North Central Mo graded North Central at NAFA. The rest for the most part would grade Semi Heavy.

I haven't been around near as long as Clay. Never got to meet half of those he has. Still, I've seen the decline in the market from the time I started 8 years ago. Quality of fur varies even within short distances. One farm produces better quality than the farm next to it. Makes no sense. I agree our better coon do grade well. I also know that I have sold many coons that brought more after they were shipped to NAFA several years ago. I know because the fur buyer that bought them told me he had received several Top Lot certificates off my coons. I still sell some of my best coons to that same buyer. He's taught me more about fur and the market than I could ever afford to learn at my own out-of-pocket expense. I sell at the association auction because the association has done, and continues to play a big part of my over-all trapping experience. An experience that isn't limited by season dates. I support our effort, to support trapping and trappers in MO, through my commission fees at our auction. I think the auction provides a lot of opportunities for trappers that otherwise wouldn't be available. It sure has for me.

I happen to live in a pretty good fur producing region of the state. My furs typically tend to be toward the better end statewide. I have a lot of competition, and I'm one of only a few in our area that attends the auction. A couple of them visit Groeny. Several used to ship to NAFA. A couple do their own thing quietly. I market a lot of my stuff through different avenues. It's just more work, but it usually results in more money. It'd be real easy for me to turn a lot of good fur into junk too. It's pretty easy to see at any sale. If you have a larger collection of better furs, and you know what you have, and you know something about the fur market, and you have a good relationship with an honest (or fairly honest) buyer, and you have good fur-handling skills, and you have done the foot-work, you can get better money than the averages in your area, most generally. I'm pretty sure it's always worked this way in the fur market. The difference is the top end. It ain't real high on the stuff most of us can trap. Almost every one of you reading this went out there and did it for the same reason I did, cause we LOVE IT!

I agree completely with you Clay on what you said. But you did leave out some info that has changed the sale more than the people who are there or not there anymore. And that is the overall market for fur. During the Keller, Veirs days there was a (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) of a coon market. There was demand for junk coons at $10 over seas and good coon for $30+ during those times with peak yrs even higher. If there was a market out there some of the same guys sitting at that table would of pushed a heck of alot harder on the coons yesterday. I know for a fact several of them coons purchased yesterday for low prices will get baled and put in a freezer and not even be offered for sale this yr. Just like mentioned in the first sentence coyote and castor. Them are really the only 2 items that have a competitive market at the time.

I’ve been selling predominantly at the Mo Auction since the early 90’s. There certainly hasn’t been a hot coon market for the majority of those years lol. I could dig thru a pile of old fur receipts and verify, but I remember way more coon averages in the low to middle teens during all those years than higher. I’ve only averaged over $30 on coon 1 time at the Mo Auction.
I promise you if all those guys would have been there yesterday you’d have seen a much better average. I believe the coon market is better than the sale averages indicate. We only sold a little over 3k coon yesterday. We’ve sold over 12k at an auction before, then 8k more 2 weeks later at another auction in the same building. Some of those auctions went on until the wee hours of the morning, and coon averaged in the mid teens back then. That hasn’t been that many years ago. 2010-11 or 2011-12 seasons.

The sales of 2013 were the peak sales of recent history, for coons, at the MTA auctions. There was a lot of speculative buying going on then. At least half the coons sold were destined for NAFA to be sold in buyer lots. It was my first season trapping and selling, but even then guys were wondering aloud how long the prices would hold. Some even commenting that, some buyers were gonna get themselves in trouble buying all the junk they were. In 2014 I was told the decline would continue, and it would last 7 years, if not 10 or longer. Couple of the bigger buyers at the auction yesterday told me they are still sitting on 1,000's of coons and really aren't looking to buy any unless they make space selling some. One told me that he bought a few hundred, and he planned to bail them and see if a market develops. If not, he's not loosing too much. As he said, you don't wanna lose any ground by not investing, but you don't wanna lose your investment trying to hold your ground. We sold 3,000 coons yesterday instead of 12,000 because the market isn't there. Investors don't spend as much when there is uncertainty. Back 10 years ago, Chinese buyers were visiting MO fur buyers and making purchases directly from them. The fur market works like every other commodities market in the world. Supply and demand. I hope the coon market is better than sales results indicate. Would means there's improvement in our future. When/if coons reach $20-$30 averages again, you'll see some "new" money enter the market. Opportunity creates buyers.

The buyers that are out there buying ( speculating ) on coon are the survivors if you are going to speculate on fur do it at the bottum of the market. The buyers that enter into it on a hot market seldom stay in business long . When the coyote market turns sour the guys that have hundred thousand dollars tied up in two thousand coyotes that are now worth ten thousand dollars wont survive unless they have .fourty thousand coon that they only have two hundred thousand dollars or less in that are now worth at least three hundred thousand . Better yet to also have a few thousand grade beaver that were bought at hatter prices . You sure dont want to have any nintey dollar castor on hand when the coyote and cat market turns south because it wont be worth fourty dollars a pound if that

I remember when ole Joe Duryee came to the sale in Malvern Ark. He was a character. Lol
Terry Wynn still comes to it.