There were evidentally a lot of guys that went ahead and sold after their minimums were not met. I was out there shagging for the first run and I guarantee that there was a ton of no-sells still out on the tables for the good quality cats.

What happens when the minimums are not met is Don calls the trappers and lets them know what the high bid was and they have the option to sell to the highest bidder. Apparently that is what happened.

Good deal, hope they were satisfied with what they got.

The difference in sold beaver vs offered was 41 beaver. Those beavers are headed up to FHA.

I don't blame you BP. You can do a good bit better on your beaver elsewhere

460 muskrats. Wow!! I remember a sale years ago when they had 17,000 muskrats. Yes- seventeen THOUSAND.

Ray Driscoll was buying at that sale and he brought his good friend Dennis Curran to help. Denny graded muskrats for 3 days! Talk about a boring job!! LOL

We need more Ray Driscolls, Dennis Hecks, and George Sovy's at these sales! I heard tell that Richard Stewart almost made the trip south to help Centralia Fur learn the fur grading ropes. Vehicle troubles put the kibosh on the notion.

Yeah, I mean these were mostly all blankets and I just couldn't bring myself to accept a low 20's offer. The other blankets that I did sell I got $30 for which is what I had set the minimum at.

Why would Centralia Fur need to learn the fur grading ropes? They’ve been in business for many years.

What about other buyers like Bob Rose, Bob Brown and Tucker Bates. Lots of old time buyers that are no longer with us.

Ah, the good old days. Gone forever.

^^^I don't know but that's what Don told me. And conjuring up the Tucker Bates and Bob Rose names dates you madam! Don't remember a Bob Brown.

Interesting. I’m old and I’ve been around a long time. I’ll admit it. I was at the very first OTC fur sale. December 1973.

When was your first sale Carl?

I'm thinking it would have been shortly after I moved to Corvallis to go to OSU. May have been the 75-76 season? If not that one for sure 76-77 in Albany. I didn't hit my stride for beaver until the mid -80's though. Prior to that I was just a lowly nutria trapper.

Interesting. So you’ve been around a long ng time too. Remember when Oregon had a limit of 100 beaver per trapper? Lots of wives were trapping back then!

Yep. What a pain to take off your gloves and get a jackknife out to insert a tag through the eye-hole on taking a beaver. That went away luckily in 1978-79, (as did the 100 beaver limit).

What I remember most about Bob Rose was selling at his place in Salem. I swear he could count the nickels in your pocket and your level of financial desperation with just a casual glance! OTC kept him competitive at least!

I’m pretty certain BP and I attended our first OTC sale in the late fall of ‘76.

I sold my first coyotes at OTC sale held at the Powell Butte Grange hall. ( pre Prineville ) Must of been around 1974 or 5. Had three, stretched on a 2 X 4. Got $7 for all three. Seen how they were supposed to be done up. Went home and built some stretchers. Lol.

A lot of wives hunt with hounds for cats , but only on the East side

Powell Butte Grange Hall!!! I remember it well. What a nightmare - so small there was hardly room to display the fur. I think we were there for 3 or 4 days!! So many memories.

He had an easy job of assessing how many nickles we had - and what the level of desperation was. None and the max!

A lot of us learned how to put up fur properly by observation of what we saw on the tables at the OTC sales. In addition, OTC used to regularly support fur handling demos during sales.

Bfflobo is a good point in case: from put-ups on 2X4's.... to routinely winning fur handling awards for his cats and coyotes.

Funny