For comparison, last February the average was $104.87, and the May sale $100.85, so around a $30usd increase on the average. That should bump up our marten prices substantially.

Nice! Looking forward to seeing how FHA does this month.
164,000 wild offered .... quite a contrast to the 30,000 coming up on the FHA March sale.

That’s good to see. Hopefully Wivoda will bump his price. Headed to Fairbanks next week to see him.

Chickenminer,
I think if FHA can figure out how to get their average return to the trapper on marten substantially higher, they would be getting a much larger offering of marten? I don't think a large market share of marten are going through FHA anymore, and instead are moved through other outlets, association auctions/ sales, and other fur buyers. Maybe this upcoming sale can set a new trend, and incentivize more trappers to risk shipping again??
I wonder if the NAFA debacle is not having some ramifications for FHA as well, by making trappers less willing to ship fur, and lose control of their hard earned product, and instead settle for whatever they can get elsewhere, while maintaining their ability to turn down what they consider inferior offers??

NAFA debacle definitely changed my mind on shipping fur to auctions. I sent fur to FHA one year and never again. Now I sell at our state sale which seems to be a decent avenue to sell fur and some of the sale proceeds go the the association to fight and protect trapping for the future.

People have long memories, a lot of people in the Northwest will never trust FHA due to the Seattle Fur Exchange and the NAFA debacle just reinforced that. I know it is true for me, I did very well at NAFA for a lot of years and was happy with them right up until everything went pear shaped. But I lost a lot of money in that debacle. Even though I never trusted FHA I several times shipped them small quantities of fur. Either as a test, or furs I didn't get done in time for local auctions, or ones I wasn't satisfied with "inferior offers" I received. Never once was I happy with the results. The final nail in the coffin for me was the year I shipped them five cats for the mentioned reasons, and a friend of mine shipped them nine. They sold one of my cats and four of his. But when the auction results came out FHA claimed 100% clearance on cats. I'm pretty positive that those nine cats were not the only cats on the sale that did not sell, which proved to me that the rumors I'd heard from several people that you can't trust FHAs numbers were true.

Still I hope FHA prospers, because a successful international auction house as an option is good for state and local auctions, because fur buyers know if they want the furs at those auctions they must offer a decent price, because sellers have the option if they don't like the price to pull their furs and send them to the international auction.