Are there ever any pickup routes for southern goods?

Being bias, I would explore putting mink ahead of rats. Considering mink are strong and rats need help. I see the zoo as day 1 and believe that it works well. Day 2 it would be nice to see beaver, otter, mink and then rats. With coon and coyotes, being another weak link, while hoping the market continues to advance sold late giving the market time to adjust.

My thoughts is injecting weaker species can temper momentum. As things seemed to stall when rats got put in on the March sale. I don’t know how much consideration is giving to order of sale. I think a strategy could be beneficial.

I used to like when they had the december sale.
It was nice to get a fur cheque for christmas.
But I guess with the less people trapping nowadays there would not be attractive volumes of fur on a december sale to attract the international buyers and not enough north american buyers today.

When it comes to the zoo and speciality items - there are plenty of North American buyers. They outnumber the foreign buyers big time!!

Didn't there used to be four sales per year?

Way back when the order of sales never changed. Always opened with beaver.

Maybe they could put on a zoo sale in december.
If you shipped to NAFA and OTA there were probably 7 or 8 sales dates.
I think they tried a september sale a couple times as a clean up sale.
Polar bears were a hot item for the chinamen for a few years,dont know if polar bears are considered zoo.

It was very much a tradition. Sort of honoring the animal that basically started the fur trade in North America.

Times do change tho. Not saying beaver shouldn’t be first, kinda like them there now.

Back in the day the schedule came out after the 800 pound gorilla, Kopenhagen, chose their dates.

February was the big one at Nafa. When I was an agent, I recall them going to 5 sales one year, otherwise 4 was pretty normal. It was during an upturn.

The current order of sale works good. Putting the zoo first gives the major items buyers another full day for inspection. Plus they might bid on some zoo items.

When the zoo was last, most of the bigger buyers were already on their way to the next sale. Just dedicated zoo buyers left.

Not trying to dispute where to put the zoo. Just wondering if any attention is considered to reposition the laggers, to try and squeeze a bit more out of them.

Perhaps it don’t matter and they are cheap for a reason. Trying to capitalize on the rising tides is all.

Let us know what you're reds do. A friend I went to college with lives in Hagerstown and told me he averaged #31 of those flat fox. I'm waiting to see a text of his numbers. He was selling those for $7-$8 for a long time.

Not many of those fox went north. I sold most to repeat customers and at the ITA auction. A bunch were skinned claws on etc. I only sent 23 I think up there after I pulled the claws on ones out.

back in the day i can remember my dad spending long nights in the fur shed getting coon ready for the november/december sale i wouldnt mind seeing a december sale again considering im still trapping long after the pick up is and than have to wait almost a year on those pelts caught in late spring

What would the last receiving date be, 15 Oct? You could start trapping mid August. Didn't FHA roll the last receiving date back a few years ago?

I believe the lrd back then was a couple weeks before the sale.The sale was a couple weeks before christmas,So around end nov.Everybody got their cheque before christmas for their fall fur.Land fur opens in the north oct 25,water fur oct 5 likely all Canadian fur on the early sale.
Was a lot of fall beaver trapped back then cause they were worth way more than open water spring beaver.
Mink too were on that early sale as well as early fox which sold good back then colour trumped weight in red fox back in the day.

I used to depend pretty heavily on FHA or NAFA advances to get from payday to payday.

Yep, there are different theories on where to put cheap or low demand fur. Some think to put it in between hot ticket items, so there are more buyers in the room that might bid on it if they think they are getting a deal. Because as you said on the zoo, if it is put last, and they already got what they came for, they aren't sticking around. Others say if they have a limited budget they are going to save it all for bidding on what they came for, but if the hot ticket items sell high and they are already sold out, buyers that didn't win them may stick around and buy up some of the low demand fur, to salvage something out of the sale, rather than go home empty handed. I suspect either can be true at times, depends on the buyers and the year.