Please explain why.

Your Beaver must be thin hided. November caught blankets easily weigh at least 3lbs

I don’t get this pay by the pound thing either. Under fur & hair is friggin light.

It's selling them by the pound stretched and dried hide included.

Mark Boardman from over your way, used to buy put up,
stretched, & dried beaver pelts by weight for a while.

Afterwards, he was also the NYS Groenewold route buyer
for awhile but now I'm not sure if he is still buying fur, or not.

I think he was paying around $8.00 or $9.00 a pound at the time.

w

Selling by the pound is the way it is now and it is the best return on beaver pelts. I still take pride in fleshing and tacking them up perfectly and it probably costs me some as you could get away with leaving more flesh on the hide and it will weigh more. I guess I am old school

It is probably a more efficient way of buying for the hatter market, but it seems like it takes all the fun out of it. What about all the hocus-pocus of the grading process, finding various inperfections to drop skins into lower grades, or pulling out the old standby super-extra special hide and pointing out how you could be paid more if they all looked like this one.

I do not trim off the nose and lips, nor do take off the tail tits.....we need the weight...I do thin down the shoulders/Jowls area but probably wouldnt have to....I have been told buy a certain midstate buyer that my pelts seem papery and light. And it's a nice heavy, possibly the most furred out pelt in the state up here on the border...

I agree, sell the damaged buy weight it possible. I dont know at all if there exists a better market for the shearable goods.

Trim nothing off.

There is a shearable market out there les, the average furbuyer is too lazy to chase it.

Too easy to pay 18 a lb for and sell for 22.

Good heavy furred winter beaver tend to have more underfur, yet lighter leather. The under fur is what they make felt out of. The under ice trapper gets the shaft so to speak.

The Walmart mentality at it's finest.

I may have to haul my beaver to Idaho to get their potential out of them.

That's what happens when I get bored skinning beaver all day! LOL The warped sense of humor comes out.

To get a better number I would need to weigh a bunch of blankets but I just weighed one. 65" My supers 70"+ will weigh more I'm sure. It is also true that leather weights are different in the north and south. I'm told that Alaska has parchment type leather.

And finally, since 99% of the market is hatter and the contracts that the felt factories put out are for pounds rather than number of pelts one can easily understand the natural evolution of buyers buying by the lb.

But if I live in an area with shearable beaver I would absolutely send them to FHA and let them get sorted there.

Finish 100 straight run beavers and weigh them, Divide the result by 100 for your average weight.

The buyers know what that number should be for your area and can pay accordingly.

Some areas in this state are all hatters and some areas have a small percentage of shearable. There are several factors that can exclude a pelt from shearing quality. The current market is mostly for felt so buying/selling by the pound removes grading. Flat out of winter pelts do not have much or any underfur. Beaver from this section will not average well in a garment market because too much damage and low percentages of shearable goods. The hatter market gives a much better return on piece of garbage hides for those willing to spend a lot of time trapping beaver.

You will never realize the true value of your good pelts if they are not graded.
They will be tossed in with the poor stuff and bring the same low price.

So they buyer is making $8 on a $40 (2 pound beaver at $20 lb)investment? That certainly isn't getting rich in my opinion when you figure in transportation costs and storage.

Spoken like a true northern fur harvester. You are definitely correct.

Unfortunately us Southerners just hang our heads without much attention to which pile our pelts are tossed into.

While Groeny has five different piles
for beaver pelt grades & sizes,

FHA has only two piles;

One Canadian pile & one USA pile

and then they grade (pay) accordingly

with Canadian pelts realizing a premium
& American pelts getting the shaft !!!

w

Dont tell lies walleyed or God wont let your sore toe heal up.