Bearcat, when I look at how beaver did I like to scroll down on the catalog and see what the blanket hatters did on a sale. On this sale they went for $43 (all of 'em). XL hatters @$38.

That is roughly double what they did last year.

It seems as the beaver averages would have been higher when listening in unless there were an unusual amount of small sizes

Yes, disappointed in coyotes and not impressed with their beaver or otter prices. Mink and ermine went unexpectedly high though.

But the thing is it is not "their" prices, it is the buyers prices. Have been to a lot of different auctions, and no matter what the auctioneer or seller wanted, if an item I wanted reached my limit. I wasn't bidding more than that for it. G.

Otter prices are improved by 50% from last year and almost $30 average on eastern beaver is pretty good considering the quality of the goods T-shirt trappers send in today. The heavy winter goods did very well. Otter look close enough to mink that I'm pretty sure we'll see a continued improvement. A year or two of 50% increases would see Otter averages well over $100 USD again.

coyote prices shouldn't be a shocker too anyone who has been paying attention to the market ever since Canada goose left the buying market their has been no demand as for beaver and otter they are slowly climbing but its the lower quality beaver that's keeping the price down as they still make great hats and can get them cheap, weasels have been jumping slowly up for the past few years and FHA said their was a renewed interest in mink and with ranch mink numbers way down i can see why

How are you seeing the sold catalog? Want to see if my local sale still beat FHA.

By looking at the catalog lot numbers than scrolling back on the auction podcast that's on Youtube.

Thanks! What's done is done. I'll wait till they post sold catalog.

About 80% or more of the beaver I catch are XL and bigger so when hatter prices are what they were this sale I'm golden for an average. I don't think any blanket beaver on this sale went for less than $40.

So as a buyer you were disappointed?
The only trappers not happy with this auction are the ones who never shipped, or maybe ones who only target coyote. My check is more than doubled than what I was low ball guesstimating before the auction and castor hasn’t sold yet. Everything's up for me, some substantially. But this was predicted, maybe the huge jump wasn’t, but they said dam near everything’s going up. We all knew this would be a good auction for the producers, maybe not this good though…..lol.

I was quoting Bearcat from a page or two back. My point was that FHA doesn't set "their" price. That price is set by the people doing the bidding. And was pointing out that at say land, estate, livestock or house hold auctions I have attended, I will have a "price" I am willing to pay. When said item reaches my price point, I am under no obligation to bid more because the seller or the auctioneer wants more.

Not complaining about price at all. G.

It will be interesting for me to see how castor goes (well, already went) for this sale. They stated they were sold out on their castor update a few weeks back and had waiting buyers. So does that translate to higher prices? Last year there was a similar hue and cry about castor but it didn't seem to bump prices at all. In fact most of the #2 grade remained unsold after June.

Auctions are for the buyer too. It’s the only reason we’d show up, hoping for a sweet deal. They’re trying to get the best dollar for their client, but buyers are trying for a good deal.
When you say “their”, do you mean FHA? They do set a value on it……. So yea, I guess they do set their price…..lol. The bidders will determine how much over the set value it goes for. FHA does have “set” prices +/-10% or so. They won’t give fur away because there’s no bidders, it’ll be sold PT or next sale or sometimes sales after that. Eventually things gotta go though. Some of the stale goods was fetching pretty crazy prices.
I think this was discussed early on or in one of the other FHA threads.