Like Dave Bosma said in his video, as long as the graders consistent.
For beaver, I thought I’d have more heavies, but I did have more blacks than I thought. My coons and skunks look real good. Wolves are a few I-IIs, a III & a IV…….couple late February early March dogs. All pale or XPL. Late November to January is the time for our SE Manitoba wolves, but it doesn’t always work out.
Nice rats Mud!!

I have an ermine that is lot 110001. Does that mean it will be top lot?

No. Not necessarily. If you watch the auction you’ll see some lots later on are fetching top lot. All up to the buyer and what he’s looking for. The big dark male fisher were crushing the nice silky females a few years ago. Turns out the trappers telling me what kind of fur will get the good $ at auction, weren’t actually buyers……lol.

Thanks wissmiss. I will be watching the auction

Shakeyjake, I printed the lots my fox are in. I can see where highlighting the first lot at the beginning of the string would be helpful, especially if you have multiple species at the auction. I only have red fox there but I made a note of the first lot anyhow.

It seems like all 8,000 reds are in the same string.

Lugnut, a string is when there are multiple lots of the same grade. Once the grade changes, it’s a new lot or string of lots of that grade.

I don’t have any reds in this one but looks like there’s lots of short strings.

Sale number 109, Lot number, Beginning & End of String, number of furs in that lot number, then the grading ending with clarity.

Crazy, our beaver are ginger compared to those lol

I had some terrific ones this year.. up until yesterday lol

I really have a lot to learn about the way FHA does things.

Thanks for straightening me out on that. I thought that the entire lot starting with 210001 was one string.

I'm getting it now (I think).

The first lot I have fox in is 210029.That string starts with lot 210027 and ends with 210030 (291 fox in that string). So I will highlight 210027 next to my lot number. I'll do the same for the rest of my lots.

I'm really glad you pointed this out before I watched the auction. I'd have been so confused! LOL

It’s real confusing at first, but gets easier every time. You can kinda sort through your fur from the last auction using the stock number.
I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff in there so it’s nice having it cleaned up and printed off. Last couple times the auction has been held during the week. I liked it when it started on a Friday to Sunday. Take Friday off and watch the auction at the shack, check a few sets while they were doing cats or ranch fur. Cheering your fur on like a horse race…..lol. It’s nice when your otter start at $27 and the hammer finally drops at $53.
What’s nice with YouTube is you can rewind when you get lost when there’s bidding wars or someone asks for info on who was the highest bidder 3 strings ago. If the hammer doesn’t drop, there’s no sale, that’ll help with the rats as it gets confusing.

Someone else was asking about the clarity. I talked to someone at FHA last year and I believe they’re planning on redoing some of the educational links on their site. Here’s a pic of an old grading terminology sheet that I’m glad I kept. This infos all in the big bible too.

I printed that Grading Terminology sheet out a few days ago. It helped a lot.

mud, after the auction is over you should complain about the grading issue. FHA has had a good reputation in beaver grading. It behooves all of us for them to do good work and keep buyers happy.

Carl - there has been at least one occasion in the past (probably more) when FHA beaver grading was called into question. It was at an auction when FH was selling Seattle. There were several of us buyers trying to figure out what was going on with the beaver samples. Just saying it isn’t anything new.

lol I suspect buyers will be very happy BP.

I’m not making a stink with them. It’s pointless IMO. I’ll vent here a bit but that’s about it. There will be a reaction on my end but it won’t be a vocal one. And truth be told they will still see some of my water critters going forward for at least one more rodeo to see if this was a blip or a new normal before I pick up my ball and go home. If this is a new norm, they won’t miss some east coast trapper and 50-100 beaver and 100-200 rats. I’m a very tiny cog in the scheme of things.

I think someone quoted Dave Bosma’s quote on here before about Consistency. FHA doesn’t like my region’s fox. I may not agree with it, but they are consistent and I respect it. I move most through alternate markets because I know how the majority will section. Consistency.

FHA has been very good over the years on beaver for me going back to northern Pa, Vermont and even NJ. Occasional a blip on a certain size on a given auction but predictable on both damage, selects and usually color. Consistent. Usually close to 20% selects with variations depending on a given years collection and similar could be said on Section III. Same with otter. They like our otter and they grade very well there.

And since moving here I was amazed how well they did picking out the black rats. And I catch a bunch percentages wise. Over 40% most years and this year was no different. Gotta be boring as heck color grading 100,000 rats for color to find a 100 or so blacks but they did it! Always missed 1 or 2 but I get it.. consistent.

So 49 beaver went north this go around and I said long before lotting that it was my possibly best ever batch and certainly the darkest and cleanest. I knew the percentage of selects was higher than normal. Color spoke for itself. 4 clean beaver out of 49 and 0 darks. 0 selects. 45 damaged to varying degree. Only 4 clean with 2 being red rims and 2 flat.

4 black rats out of 110 I sent north. I know there were over 40 blacks. Maybe a few fell just below lg, the cut off size they lot blacks. But there were over 40 total. Since i moved here the percentage is always right there. Magically this year only 4 grade black. Fair to say someone was asleep at the wheel this time.

That’s inconsistent with what I sent this season and historically what I have years and years worth of sending them. I won’t be able to justify driving 3 hours each way to go to a FHA pickup for that kind of inconsistency.

Mud, I shipped my shearable beaver to FHA and always did well. Will see this go around. I remove the black rats and sell to a private buyer.
I have rats there going on 5 years.

Consistency is the main thing. Dave was grading a lot of stuff, but Ken's been doing the beaver. One thing I learned is the just because you've got a nice February beaver, doesn't mean it'll be a heavy. Quite often they'll have garbage feed or health issues. I've noticed this after checking out inside after skinning, damaged liver, parasites...etc.

mud, I still say it will help us all if they get feedback from trappers about the grading. Consistency is needed for buyers to have confidence that the display lots accurately portray the strings and that from auction to auction the grades look the same.

NAFA had a lot of issues grading beaver in its later years and the buyers took note, or so I had heard. FHA started to win over buyers during that time.

We need Boco to tell us the grade never changes yet again. That never gets old.

Hang on Mud, here’s what I was told on the other forum…..
“The listing have not been audited yet before everything is finalized for the sale all the grade tickets will be confirmed.
Lots of things go on before the finalize sale results go out.“