Stuff like this does not get done by a bunch of folks on the internet saying "somebody" should start a US fur auction house. Stuff like this is driven by capitalism, where somebody risks their hard earned money to start a business and then expects to make a profit in return. So, we would just be back to complaining about outrageous fees for shipping, handling, drumming, cities, and commissions to pay employees, operating expenses and, heaven forbid, some reasonable amount of profit.

All this in a nice warm building. Does sound better than my job.

To me the biggest question would be how much fur would have to be on the table to get the end users to the house with the check book in hand.

I think the best idea yet is when the idea of several states or a region that would or could pull this off. They are already having sales, now they super size it to get the big boyz their.

Imo the best time to get this going is when the market is suppressed.

South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming would be the 4 best states to start it together.

I would have 2 different ways to sell, 1 sell some the same way they do now and get your fur back if it doesn't sell. or 2 sell the same way fha and nafa did in huge lots that you can't get your fur back.

Auction houses do not own the fur so they don't need to leverage their inventories. They do need to develop routes or collection systems, establish inventory storage facilities and develop their intake, ID, marketing and operational systems. Due to the fact that there are not profit and losses on owned pelts the entire operational revenues are based on the commissions earned from the sale of other owners of the auctioned fur. That to me indicates that there needs to be a critical mass of revenues that can only come from sales volumes and prices. Low volumes and low prices would be the poorest combination. Buyers of fur can buy lower cost fur and maybe profit from those sales. Obviously high volumes and high prices is the best case for auctions, if they stay strictly in the auction arena. The one thing that ranch fur did was maintain higher volumes and reasonably stable numbers for the most part. Wild fur harvests show a strong tendency to not hold stable numbers as harvest is more price driven. The decisions by some auction leadership and heightened optimism followed by rapid and decisive down swings has changed that for the current time frame.
Trappers could form coops or even a fraternal type non profit where all profits are returned to either trapper organizations or trappers, however membership would be decided or defined. Retained earnings or stocks could be used to fund the business along with needed loans and returned to members over time. Those time periods can vary significantly. The real issue before serious planning would be what is the realistic outlook for fur and especially in our case wild fur for the future. Continued long term low volumes with sporadic price spikes in limited species really is a market for profit driven firms that have strong equity basis or are willing to accept financial risks.
Most trappers agree that $3-$4 rats do not cover all costs to a trapper but someone is making money selling those rats into the end markets.
Bryce

Rpmartin’s suggestion about several state associations getting together to have a regional salelooks good on paper.

Only problem I see is who will be in charge. Even if you have a committee of 2 people from each association, they still have to decide on a format.

My experience with western fur sales is that no 2 are exactly alike. Lots of minor differences. Each association thinks their sale is the best format. I doubt you could get them to agree on exactly how the sale should be run.

Take that one step further Nancy and let's say we do get them to agree on a format. Would the combined fur of 4 or 5 big association sales attract international buyers? Would we have trapper lots or auction graded lots? I can't see many international buyers willing do deal with trapper lots.

Get the trappers organizations and individual trappers to put up the money(invest)same as how OTA started,and same as how FHA started after OTA went under.
Need a board of directors from that group,then you need to hire the right people then away you go.
OTA hired Taylor Carmicheal and later Alex Shief,and FHA Hired Fred Glover.

So first you need the investors(which appoints a board) and second the board to hire the right industry people.

there is very little or no demand for fur. untill that changes no point putting on an auction without or limited buyers no matter where the auction is held. investors realize this.

Been reading this post and finding it very interesting .I have one question just curious . What kind of money would it take to start something like you all are talking about.

If you remember when OTA went down the fur industry was in the same shape.No banks would invest-but the trappers did. Trappers and their organizations bankrolled FHA successfully at that time.
Trappers who have been around any length of time know that the fur industry always goes up and down-and up again.

It can be done but it takes people with guts to do it.

What I want to know Boco is how much money are or did the First Nations pump into FHA to rate 5 board members?

I was talking to Greg Schroeder a couple weeks ago about fha renting a facility stateside and have the auction down here. He said it won't work. Said it had to do with the US being too restrictive on their visa's to come and go out of the US. Said it was tried, I believe he said Hudson Bay, New York, back before nafa, they tried international auctions in NY. Was a flop on all accounts, he told me. If you want to get all the details, call Greg at Cambridge fha facility, he can fill you in as to why a stateside auction won't attract enough buyers to be worth doing. To many gov regulations to content with.

I believe they matched the non native trappers contributions,dont remember the total amounts at that time,Gibb would know.At that time there was about half the number of FN trappers in Ontario compared to non native.Their contribution came thru the UOI-one of 3 treaty organizations in Ontario.I know there is always a treaty 9 member on the board so some of the UOI contributions must have come from treaty 9 and treaty 3.
Got good support from some US members as well who shipped fur to OTA.

Maybe I should call greg and remind him FHA a few years ago routinely sold fur at an Auction in the U.S. and make money doing it. Unless Seattle doesn't count? Not building a lot of confidence here.

"Fur Harvesters is pleased to announce the following results from our February 20, 2006 auction held in Seattle, WA, in conjunction with American Legend. Demand for wild fur continues to be strong. Articles such as fisher, marten, mink, muskrat and beaver are realizing prices that are double from just a year ago. This is a strong indication of the new found strength and popularity of wild fur."


"SALE RESULTS – FEBRUARY 18, 2008
PRICES SHOWN IN US DOLLARS
As anticipated the cold weather that came early across much of the Northern Hemisphere combined with the shortage of production resulted in strong increases on many articles. Levels obtained on the February 18th auction held in Seattle Wa, saw prices on marten, lynx and lynx cat, climb to levels unseen for 20 years. "


2011

"Prices are on the rise which reflects the current strong and growing demand for wild fur. Our exceptional collection of Western Lynx
Cats, Canadian and Alaskan Lynx were the highlights of the sale. Trim type Coyote and Red Fox saw dramatic increases over FHA
January levels. Bread and butter items such
as Beaver, Otter, Muskrat, Wild Mink, Raccoon and Fisher saw solid advances. Sable saw excellent demand for the heavier qualities, however the light wei
ght types did meet some resistance. Taxidermy items sold well at rising levels. What was most encouraging about our sale was the fact that virtually every market was active. Fur Harvesters Auction would like to thank the International Fur Trade buyers for making this auction an overwhelming success. As well we would like to thank American Legend Cooperative for being such a gracious host. "

They also sold in Helsinki hosted by saga infrastructure.
Wasnt worth it in the long run either.
They do work hard to market our fur,obviously.
They come a long way from those first sales in the empire hotel in 1950's.

In my opinion, trapper sales, no matter if it is one association or several associations combined, will NEVER attract international buyers. Over the 47 years OTC has been in business, they have had various international buyers attend their sales. The first time was Jack Skolnick out of New York City. He bought 2 mink. There have been several other occasions.

The best thing that might happen IF an international buyer did attend a Trappers sale is that the international buyer would make a connection with a small dealer who would buy for him at sales and in the country. That has happened several times.

Two things work against a trapper sale attracting international buyers.

1. They want volume. 2000 bobcats or 17,000 muskrats is NOT volume.

2. They want professionally graded lots. They don’t want to buy beaverpeelers mixes lot of 50 beaver. They want 150 LM brown slight damage beaver. Peeler has 1 of those skins. They don’t want the other 49.

Deal breaker right there.

I know Trappers complain about “middle men”. But in my opinion, “middle men” are a fact of life in the fur business. Always has been (.Jim Bridger didn’t sell his beaver pelts to a hat maker in London, he sold to a fur company, who then sold to the hat maker) and always will be.

Apparently, it only took them 14 years of losing money to figure this out.

Why would the international buyers buy anywhere besides the Canadian casinos? If they can't get what they want for a good price then they'll just wait for the pt room deals.

If that fur never made it to canadada and they still want it then they will have to come to where it's being auctioned off at.

I bet very little Canadian fur goes to the pt room. Canadian's get taken care of, U.S. trappers are the first ones to be thrown under the bus when push comes to shove.

How do you suppose that works? Do you actually believe that Canadian and US fur isn't sorted together?

I bet they know which bundles are mainly from a certain part of north America.

Drifter did point out i was a Johnny come lately, but you don't have to have a lifetime of experience to figure some of this stuff out.