Any crystal ball forcastes on the pricing of castor this year.....state sales are showing a decrease.....

I'm guessing that it will probably level off at around $60 per pound. I heard the perfumers aren't offering the higher prices they had been the past couple of years.

I'm going to hang in there at $80 per pound this year. My lures prices are set at the rate of $60. per pound for castor and prices for other ingredients. I had to increase my offering price on castor in order to get it. It's had an impact on the profit margin.

Castor was at 100 at the ohio jan sale. Doesnt show up that way in the results because in the way we sell it. We weigh the castor and the buyers bid for the final price, not the price per pound. Limits the math involved for buyers, sellers and the clerking staff.

It could be that someone hasn't gotten the word about it, or I may be wrong. Other auctions have it in 50 - 70 dollar range. Time will tell.

It seems that supply/demand issues brought incremental increases over the last 5 years as pelt prices have been abysmal. Now we're hearing there may be a small increase in pelt prices so it will remain to be seen if that increases supply (of castor) up to further decrease prices.

It will also be interesting to see what castor does in the March FHA sale. It's been very high there last few sales.

Paul, did you ever end up deciding to add some northern castor to your line up?

very possible, wouldnt be the first time buyers got a bit a head of themselves. Then again, you never know who was buying and what their end use market is. I wasnt at the sale myself. Our next sale is second saturday of March which will be a big sale as we are looking at over 60 lots of trappers, not counting walk-ins. I sold my castor last year at that auction for 90 and the buyer that bought it said it was going into facial creams.

I need to replenish my stockpile this year......held off last year due to pricing....

Kosoi over on the international forum sold some in Siberia in January for $180/lb. He seemed to indicate that it went into the homeopathic or medicine trades. I have also heard that the Pakistanis are big castor buyers.

I've got almost enough northern castor to run a trial batch to see how well it sells. Folks are so use to seeing Backbreaker, that they may be leery of Northern Backbreaker. I'll see how this trial batch goes. I don't want to invest a lot in northern castor until I see how this does in the market. I know it works, but trappers are a suspicious lot - lol - and for good reason.

I wouldn't hesitate to try the northern. Bet it works fine.

It probably won't be ready for a few months yet. Backbreaker isn't a cake mix type lure where you mix the ingredients and it's ready. There is aging that has to take place, so it takes a while. I will most likely have it at conventions this year.

We get American castor up to $180 a pound and I'll be trying your new Northern Backbreaker too boss
Lol

If it gets that high, I won't be making Backbreaker - I won't able to afford to.

As you know loads of beavers have been caught on lures containing Northern castor so I'm confident if you use the same care and other ingredients in it's formulation as the original Backbreaker, it'll be a great beaver lure Paul.

Paul is correct on the Italian perfume makers have backed way this year
.trading at 60 to 70 a pound for select number one
I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Bossman....just name it "Yankee Stanky "

Backbreaker North.

Upper Backbreaker.

From a marketing perspective im not so sure using Backbreaker in the name would be a good idea unless your testing shows similar enough results