Life is a gamble---so is the fur market!

IMO tanning skins before selling them is only to the benefit of the buyer not the trapper as presented here.The buyer is assured of his skins with no risk in tanning. If the skins slip or are damaged in dressing guess who's rear end the money is deducted from? I can assure you it is not the buyer.

The loss in dressing is factored in their overhead, so if that loss in eliminated because of a % of uncertainty, price should go up.

GFW, if you read any of this I have a question. If the cats will be dressed before being offered for sale, if your not going to buy them but only market them, will you accept cats dried fur in? The damage due to improper handling or other things will be reduced substantially. I cant think of any reason not to stretch and dry fur in.

GWF: "We will finance the dressing but obviously that will come off of the sold price"

So the question has been asked twice and still has not been answered or am I just slow?

Sounds to me like a COST associated with the sale of the pelt so if it "comes of the sold price" then it simply replaces other fees that are charged at Auctions.

$25 flat fee plus $25 (????) dressing fee equals 17 PERCENT total fees paid by trapper at a $300 average.



GWF: "I can't set the market prices but my job will be to get you the most for your fur wherever the market is"

This is my biggest concern. I don't see any incentive in this program for GWF to market your fur for as much as they can get. Actually seems to be set up just to move product because that is what a flat fee does. It's like getting paid piece work. You know how much you get paid to build a widget so you just build as many as you can.
At an auction house they protect you by setting the market with a minimum bid and they don't sell your stuff for cheap. Commissions incentivize the selling agent to get as much as they can for your goods. This system sounds like you will never know how your fur graded or what the minimum was (if any) until you get a check back in the mail.

By circumventing the auction house this will have an overall negative effect on prices near as I can tell. Unless GWF plans on demanding premium prices for the furs but with no sealed bid process it just becomes a negotiated sale. "hey what will you give me for these"

GWF: "We have sold over 8,000 bobcat skins in the last 8 months" Great but at what prices? On the cheap and bringing down prices? NAFA fire sale skins? Partly to blame for FHA not selling any?

I am not knocking GWF. Have never done business with them and wouldn't know one of them if they punched me in the face I am just skeptical of the overall effect to the cat market this will have if it becomes popular.

This system doesn't seem to protect the seller or the market.

ML

Could the $25 tanning be value added tho Mercer?
Say the $300 cat worth $350 ?

Good points Mercer. Maybe that will get a reply.

And so far as the dressing - if GWF is willing to deal with all the skins that don't make it through the tanning my hat is off to them. After all these years still way too many skins show up at state auctions that will never make it through the tannery and the trapper thinks he has diamonds.

And all the skins that were pulled off the board too soon and get bald spots, the green bellied road kill that you boraxed to try and keep the fur on, the sewn bullet holes and knife cuts, the one you ripped pulling it off the stretcher or forgot that one push pin six inches up from the tail so you you super glued a dryer sheet in it to slip it through the auction etc. etc. A guy will have to think twice before sending them off knowing that he will STILL OWN THEM ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE DRESSING! Big difference between that and a nearly anonymous auction.

So where will those skins go? My bet is your state association sale.

Which bring me to my next point - I a not a fan of anything that - dare I use the term, "defunds" the state associations. Fur sale are about the only way an association makes any money.



ML

I didn't think of it like that Hippie. Good point!!!

And speaking of that - how the heck do you grade dressed fur? Never been involved in that. Is that a thing?
Maybe just never been around it so it's hard for me to think of anything other than a dried pelt all nicely stretched and easy to measure and see.

A finished pelt just looks like a bath towel hanging on a hook.

ML

Mercer, i use to market alot of my fur through a state auction and through the years it turned into a junk yard.
Was the place for the coon hunters to haul in their matted up dog chewed coon hides to get whatever they could
for them, price's didn't matter to them. Lot of green fur, rotten fur, etc.

What i saw from all of this was buyer's just came there to get cheap fur, they wouldn't bid very high even if it was
nice well put up pelts, they could buy volumn and get a decent string of good hides from all the junk in there for
little of nothing.

My cats here won't even make decent floor mat's in a pick up so this won't affect our 'cat market', lol. I will say id
have to give this idea a try, i like new idea's instead of 'this is how we've always done things' approach. Id not send
an entire season's catch (never did that with NAFA or anyone else) but id sent them a couple of cats to see if this
method of selling was for me or not.

Good point...value added should go to the trapper and or split w/GFW. Like selling lumber...green, air dried and kiln dried. Value added at each step but possibility of degrade in the process.

How many of you western cat men have cats sitting at the FHA storage unit? These cats are waiting for a buyer to come to Canada to buy them and they may be sitting there for a long time. While Groney will be taking dressed cats to the Buyers for hands on inspection. Sounds like It might work out for everyone.

Dressing skins does have risks. However, there is risk removed for the buyer. They know exactly what they are getting. Every buyer in the fur trade discounts raw skins for the risk of fallout. If a trapper handles their fur poorly and it gets put with other skins that are handled correctly the poorly handled skins are actually subsidized by the well handled skins. In our process this does not happen. A well handled cat will in fact look better after dress. You the trapper get that benefit. We are already doing this successfully around the world. Your well handled skins will be seen dressed by many buyers and sold to the manufacturer willing to pay the most. We are generally “sellers” and don’t try to hold out for the last nickel. This may or may not benefit you. This is the exact process we use and are willing to let trappers use it if they are interested because of the high value of cats. If you have poorly handled skins it is not for you but if you have well handled cats I feel this system is very attractive. I hope this answers some questions.

We will take cats fur in. This is how we do all of our cats. We obviously never have a wire burn and save a lot of labor. Very good question.

If you have fur at FHA waiting for a buyer. Then Groeny sells to that buyer in Europe. He don't have to come to Canada to buy your fur later.

Mercer makes many good points in this discussion.My advice is to study what he says.I could have repeated what he said verbatim but I was not sure you would have taken me as serious as him.If you read my posts you will see that my questions lead to responses by GFW. As far as sending lower end fur to association auctions.Out west the association auctions bring out the best fur and buyers in the US as far as Western cats.The buyers pay a very high price for the goods.When you sell thru your association you are paid within a couple weeks and sometimes the same day.You will not have to wait months or years and have no idea what you will get.You can control the price of your fur you are selling with reserves.I am 110% behind selling thru your associations as that is how they fund themselves which is then returned by their actions to everyone who traps.

I like the hidden Western heavy Bobcat market forecast GFW is giving here in this thread. Makes me fill like investing in some gas and my time looking for some A bellied Bobbers. The option of leaving them skin side out would save a huge amount of time and I would think less damage in the tanning process plus keep the fur protected until it is tanned.

I kinda got the same little tingly feeling about the forecast.
The part about fur in till tanned not so much. Sounds like “in for a penny, in for a pound “

Yea, its a great sign when a fur buyer wants to be a fur broker. The market must be hot

Any insight as to what cats would bring marketed over there dressed?? That is the big question that comes to my mind.