Beaverpeeler your box is full!

Popularity is a curse ya know? I'll see what I can do.

Awesome Foxhunter

So no sale results? Id not like that sealed bid way of doing things, no clue what this southern fur is worth from year to year. Be hard to put a minimum bid on anything cause you have no clue what's a fair price for it, except jumbo 30 inch coon, they are worth .50 to a dollar IF you put them up top lot style, lol.

DOn't expect any soon. Their IT person was headed out to the Netherlands Sunday evening. Even the master list wasn't printed until Monday morning.

I've volunteered in the back office checking sealed bids against minimums (OTC sales late 90's) and lots of times the high bid was waaaay higher than any other bid. Normal auctioning and those lots would have gone a lot cheaper.

.....minimums just protect you for example you have a cat that 100 dollars (maybe anther buyers offer) you can send to auction with 100 minimum if dont reach that amount they wont sell it. you dont need to put minimums on your fur to sell at western auctions and fur will be sold to highest bidder. like fur harvesters for example

I’m probably going to get myself in trouble with ITA but I’m going to jump into this discussion and say that there is something wrong with their computer program that they can print results the minute the last lot is cleared.

Rusty will tell you that they “have to check things”. before the final results are announced. I wish I knew what needs to be checked!!

Both Nevada and OTC (Oregon) have sealed bid auctions. Their computer program is such that sale results - % sold and averages - are available as soon as the last lot is cleared. The computer person clicks a certain button and the sale results print out. There is nothing that needs to be checked. The data is checked (and in some cases double checked) as it is entered. So everything is correct along the way and thus final results are in instantly available.

Why doesn’t ITA’s program do that????

Another interesting thing - why is their IT person scheduling a trip out of the country for the evening of the end of a sale?? They must have known ahead of time this was going to be a huge sale.

I realize the IT person has a life outside of fur sales but the sale date is set months ahead of time, in fact the date for the 2027 sale is probably already set - it is the same weekend every year. So why did they plan their trip for the same weekend???

Ok - I’m done talking. Let the hate begin.

Probably the same reason FHA does not operate the same computer program that NAFA was using before the collapse. I wish they did, but they don't.

If there are only a handful of lots that didn't make their minimums it goes a lot faster. In ITA's defense, visions of sugar plums danced through the heads of a lot of trappers with western cats and their minimums reflected that. Rusty had to go old school and read from the list the lots that didn't make minimum and see if the lot owner would say "sell or no sale". Just for cats alone I think it took almost an hour to go through. Then there was coyotes and all the other stuff.

Another thing is there was so much fur they wanted to give the buyers all the time they wanted. All the buyers except for two had their bids in by 9:00 am Sunday. The others were given until 3:00 but I think didn't even make that deadline. And nobody wants to get too pushy with Kortum, one of the biggest (lol).

There were a lot of folks who left early and therefore were not available to see what they wanted to happen with their lots. It was pretty chaotic.

The bottom line is ITA cannot try to move that much fur in such a short time. Hopefully Rusty and company will see what other western auctions do.

As Nancy knows very well, OTC sales used to go multiple days to handle volumes of fur like ITA had on this one.

I can only imagine the chaos with that much fur. All we can do is be patient to see the results. Perhaps Nancy, the IT person had a family emergency that came up and needed to go to the Netherlands last minute? We shouldn't assume this was a planned vacation.

Patience Grasshoppers

Remember selling to HBC and waiting for the check 3 weeks to get the results. Early 80s:)

Nancy, I don't know much about the system at all and I'm sure it can be improved upon. We had some mis entered bids that we didn't hold the furbuyer to ($100 single mink, $200 single muskrat and the program is doubling up our tied lots. We are working through those and they will change averages. Our computer lady (my mother-in-law) was 20 days after losing her son in an accident after the Jan sale and was ripped apart on facebook by everyone by not having the averages instantly afterwards. Now she left for a work trip (not a vacation) and she gets criticized for having to go to work? We had someone drive her directly to the flight that was leaving at midnight. She was working in that office for 18 hrs a day for several days doing a favor for her son in law. Then on her 8 hr layover, she facetimed us working remotely on entries. She is a safety inspector for a manufacturing company, so she has to travel all over the world for work, sometimes with not much notice. I'm not sure what other states are doing with their systems (we have given ours to Utah and NM) and I try to never criticize other sales. We had tens of thousands of pieces of fur, 1800 cats, 1,000 cats, thousands of rats, and piles of other fur and parts. Hundreds of trappers, thousands of lots and over 35 buyers. Yes, we will work on changes, and I can see us doing a bobcat only sale next year and sell everything else at a different sale. I'm not sure but we will fix it and make it better.
We have a bunch of bobcats that didn't meet the minimum, but folks had left because we are running over. The ITA is not going to penalize them because we were running late. Those folks have two choices; they can take the high bid offered and the ITA will try and sell the cat at another sale (if the price goes down then ITA eats that money) or I will deliver them their cats back. I have already had one trapper tell me he will sell all 12 of his cats for the price offered which changes averages and percentage of cats sold. On some of them he put a minimum set at $1200 a cat and offered $400 and still takes the bid which is a huge time waster but that is a subject for a different day. I'm sorry that averages aren't done instantly right when they sales are done but just doing the best we can. I'm not taking offense, just doing the best we can. I get folks that call and are shocked that I am at work and I'm not sitting in an office somewhere. We all do have regular jobs and not just fur sale staff. Not trying to be bitey with everyone, just doing the best I can.
Sincerely
Rusty Kramer

Also, yes, we pushed the deadline out a day. I couldn't sleep at night knowing the international buyer and Kortum wouldn't get through all of the cats. I wasn't going to let that happen. This sale is about raising money for the club and getting the absolute most money possible for the trapper's fur. When we knew we were running over the ITA bought a keg of beer and supper for all of the trappers for the inconvenience. I know it's a inconvenience on folks traveling a long ways but when you beg for consignments from folks and it runs 40% higher than you figured you just have to adapt....

It’s a thankless job at times Rusty but thank you to you and your staff there.

Just like NAFA and PT sales!

Thanks for taking time for the explanation(s) Rusty. I didn't envy you on Sunday. Hope you get some rest soon.

BTW, when do I get my money!!!!!!!



(Just kidding).

Except that you actually get paid.

I understand about what everyone is saying. My condolences to the IT lady. But if the Netherlands trip was planned, couldn’t a back up IT person been brought in and trained to help out.

I’m curious about pulling one of the major buyers away from grading to do a live auction of donated items. I know every one enjoys that auction. I know George likes doing it. And most importantly it is a fund raising for ITA. But the 2-3 hours he spent being an auctioneer could have been spent grading and figuring bids.

I am aware that George wasn’t the only buyer that needed more time. And I know some of the small buyers were upset that the large buyers got more time. But when you’ve got a sale with that much fur - maybe close to 2 million dollars based on asking prices - doesn’t it seem only fair that the buyers who could potentially spend hundreds of thousands of dollars are given extra time.

I’m rambling a bit here but ITA needs to make some major changes before next season or I predict they will lose sellers.

A good starting point would be for Rusty and the sales crew to attended the OTC sale in Klamath Falls, Oregon on the 20th and 21st. Perhaps they could pick up some points on making the ITA sales more efficient.

Yes, I am biased towards OTC. Yes, it’s been a number of years since I attended an ITA sale. But ITA MUST change in order to continue to be one of the major sales in the west.

that reply should have charged " consulting fees" wissmiss