"Conditions of Sale - U.S.

1. FHA’s sales commission is 19.2%."

P.S. that is the commission this last sale. with out the adjectives Buyer and Seller put in front of two commissions which are added together..

Got a $7 handling fee on otter that average $23. That's pushing about 50%. Fee loading is where the profit is.

Several reasons. I should mention that I buy for the craft market, not the international fur market. And my needs are usually quite specific. ,most times I need a few pelts of a lot of different species.

Reason 1 - auctions like FH (and previously NAFA) offer just about every wild fur species available plus ranch mink and ranch fox. All in one place. Everything from ermine to wolves. I would have to do a LOT of traveling to buy all those different species I need.

Reason 2 - I’m usually looking for a specific size and grade. For example, I might need 50 medium size brown beaver that are slight damage. I can’t think of any one trapper that would have that quantity of that grade. Probably couldn’t do that even with 3 or 4 trappers. And if I could find that many pelts, most trappers want to sell their entire collection. Say a trapper has 75 beaver, all sizes and grades. 5 of those pelts are what I need. He wants to sell the whole bunch. What am I supposed to do with the other 70 pelts? Send them to FH and take my chances?? LOL

Reason 3 - you guys are going to scream about this reason. Price. I often shop in the Bargain Basement (Section III). On occasion I can use grade III red fox. I like to buy 100 or so at a time. I can buy them at FH for a buck or two (hammer price, before fees). Again, no one trapper is going to have that many of that grade and even if he did, he would scream like a banshee if I offered him $2.00. I can buy them at FH and not listen to the complaining and whining about how that pelt that I offered 2 bucks on is worth at least $15.00. FH can listen to the whining.

That about sums it up.

To give you an example of Reason 1. At one time, NAFA printed buyers invoices one species per page. And in beaver, each size got its own page. At one sale, the printer kept printing and printing and printing. When it was finished, my invoice was over 30 pages long!! Each page had just a lot or two or three and a lot of blank space.

Any questions???

And those CITES* fees are for lynx, bobcat, bears, otter, wolves and wolverine. Bunch of international grief that anybody moving those skins across international borders has to deal with. Back in the day when we used to sell wolves, otter, lynx and bears to German Air Force guys stationed here what a pile of paper work grief that was to deal with. Sympathy to whoever at FHA has to deal with thousands of those each year and understand the fee to the buyer for having to deal with that bureaucratic grief.

*Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Skins we are trading in are not endangered but they look enough like those same species, in other countries where they are endangered, that ethical source traceability has to be assured. It is what it is.

There aren’t any CITES fees on wolverine. At least not yet…….

My bad lol. Tks Wissmiss for the correction.

I’d think that you could buy a heckuva lot of fur you’d need without all that fees and hoops to jump through with a phone call to a Weibke, Zanders, or a Barnes.

thanks wissmiss i pretty much knew your answer i was hoping you would explain so others on here would know how it worked a bigger selection is worth the extra money i might be wrong but im betting you have bought from of the state sales in your area also that have larger selections and fewer fees also thanks again

"Again, no one trapper is going to have that many of that grade and even if he did, he would scream like a banshee if I offered him $2.00. I can buy them at FH and not listen to the complaining and whining about how that pelt that I offered 2 bucks on is worth at least $15.00. "

Of course you probably make $25 off them.

Show your math.

Red Fox tail $24

Claw, antler, and Hide co

You forgot to deduct expenses and labor from the price of that tail. Nobody made $24 on it.

That is just the tail. There is a whole body left.

You failed business class, didn’t you?

That is why I trap coon.

Kinda like they scream bloody murder when Groeny has the dollar pile, but not a word when the auction houses sell them for a dollar.

And I don't blame her one bit, that's just good business on her part if the auction house sells them for that.

Absolutely!

I will admit I didnt pay enough attention......BUT.....It should be important to you, that extra charge is taken from YOUR pay- even though you arent buying. Most live auctions here in the east only charge the seller, I do believe online auctions do charge both most of the time.

So any profit is what auction house get, shipper makes zero profit, so all this sounds very negative for upcome season with increased gas prices an everything else up in price, buy bunch trap supplies is bad idea if this keep up for few more yrs as markets eventually well go down tubes on everthing eventually

Only you know if its worth your time to trap or if you'd be better off working a couple hours overtime instead.