Question for buyers or beaver sellers, we have our fur auction coming up this weekend. I’ve asked all that will to size sort their beaver and coon to help speed graders. I expect a thousand beaver, more, there. On people that have 50-60 of the same size is it better to run through in lots of ten or twenty instead of having 50 in a pile? Buyers like to look more carefully if there’s 50 laying there and ten can be glanced at quicker. Also, any need to separate fall and February beaver in this market? Thanks.

A pile of coon is quicker to look through than a pile of beaver.

If you're grading the pelts, it shouldn't matter how big or small the strings are . If you grade so there's a 100 similar grade and size pelts, put those together and run em through. Breaking em down to smaller strings is going to slow down your auction. Only break out unique hides(piebald, black, other) for the novelty buyers.

If the buyers don't trust your graders then you might want to break em up so they can look at em better. Our auction, which is also this weekend, the main buyers pretty much go off the grades except for maybe coyote and oddball colored hides.

Thanks,
I was wondering if the price per bundle made a difference with the buyers. 300 for ten or 3000 for a hundred. I know sale would go faster in big piles. I have six size bundles laid out on mine. Any difference in fall and Feb beaver?

February beaver will have more underfur. Even my SE Ohio end of December beaver are fairly thin on underfur to the BN point of the hide being see-through especially on the smaller sizes. About the only good thing about fall beaver is they won't be bit up as much or at least the bites from spring are well healed by then.

Price per bundle won't be an issue for the main buyers. Smaller guys might bulk at the big lots of they are going for decent money

I wouldn’t think that the beaver on your sale would be graded anything other than hatter. Might separate by size to make it go faster. And I could be all wrong, I frequently am.

Tie them in a bundle and put the weight on them. You will get more than if they're graded. NOT joking.

It's always an interesting question how to lot your fur on country sales. I first try to figure out who the buyers are and what they're looking for. For beaver if you have major collectors with deep pockets I say make those lots as big as you can. One seller with 100 big sized beaver is a plum those buyers don't want to miss out on. They may slightly raise their bid on that lot to keep a competitor from getting it.

On my two last sales I put all my XL and larger beaver in one lot. 92 beaver and 126 beaver. Both of those lots bought by the same big beaver buyer.

In other years where the crafters were the highest $$$ bidders I put my beaver up in lots of 10 according to size and quality.

Good luck to you guys!

wharton, do you think buyers trust us trappers to give a true accurate weight?

I think buyers know what an average beaver pelt weighs. Being that it's a hatter market I would just seperate by size.

I don't think many buyers are going to take a trappers word on grade, weight or size. They are going to look at the fur size it and grade it, or low ball to make sure they are covered.
.

.

My buyer most certainly does. I've been selling to him that way for 10 years. he's never even asked.

I asked a buyer at our OTC Prineville sale last Saturday if he could determine weights of beaver hides without a scale. He said heck no. He brought a scale with him to weigh beaver. I actually had thought about putting a tag on those beaver giving a weight but figured they would not trust it.

This is something that I don't get why buyers aren't pushing as much is that you need underfur to make felt. Early beaver don't have a lot of underfur. You can run you fingers through the fur and see your fingers through the skin. The semi heavy and heavy beaver have a lot more underfur than the classic "hatter beaver" in the south

Sniper, I think last year desperation had set in and just any beaver would do. I've been expecting the buyers to become a little more sophisticated in their approach this season but perhaps the fact that we're not seeing a huge increase in this year's beaver harvest may lead to desperation once again become the driving force.

You cant "weigh" the leather on a beaver pelt without a scale(dont know why you would care),but a half arsed grader can weigh the fur with his hand easily sorting out HVY,SEMI and LT.

The reason the collectors care is the felters have signed contracts with them based on poundage, not sizes or grades.

They wont know regardless until it is separated from the leather.
Leather weights can vary greatly on beaver of the same size.
You would get a much better assessment by weighing the fur with your hand
Watch the vid NAFA put out on Phil Patterson weighing beaver.
He can tell in a few seconds how much fur in on the pelt.
feels for density and looks at the length same time.Also can tell how much coverage.He points out what is wanted by the felters.and what is no good.

I'll be curious to see how FHA handled the beaver grading this time around, to see if there are any changes. But as long as there are contracts solely based on weight the felt trade will be getting screwed on thick leather, poorly fleshed goods that probably aren't coming out of Canada.