Why not start a US fur auction house?

Serious question.

NAFA is out of business. Many folks are unhappy with Fur Harvesters. Lots of empty buildings from businesses going under. Lots of trappers with fur they want to sell. Seems like the perfect time.

Many states have small sales already. Get them all together and have one big sale. Should be a piece of cake to make it happen.

So who’s going to get the ball rolling?

Good idea. Maybe the place to start would be with all the trapping associations.

I like where you're going with this. "Beggars can't be choosers" comes to mind when I hear what some people say about marketing fur at FHA. I think it's true that FHA hasn't been completely upfront with trappers this past year but I also think that they're doing what they can with the situation they're in. With that in mind, I think the answer to your question has a few factors. First off, there is a ton of uncertainty throughout the fur market right now. Sure it appears that things have hit rock bottom and are going to bounce back but then again, who saw the pandemic coming? Who would have thought international borders would be closed this long? Who would have imagined the ranch mink industry going the direction it has? What direction is the fur fashion trending? Quite honestly, I'd be very hesitant to put my neck out there with all of these uncertainties that have occured in only a year or so. The fur industry is notoriously volatile but all of the things that have happened in just the past year have really made for an interesting industry. No thanks, I'm fine with sending my few pelts to FHA and complaining about watching them sit there for a sale or two.

Well.......first you would need an actual demand for fur.




There's better places to make money, If you have access to that kind of capital.

I think it would be a great Idea and seems like a lot folks are not happy with selling to Groney, small buyers or fur harvesters let them all pitch in come up with a business plan and get what they feel would be a fair price even start a coop which is somewhat what fur harvesters is. Anyway I'm thinking they would soon find out how tough it is in any business let alone the fur business. If you don't like things change them! maybe a lot of folks need to get into politics see how they can change things. There are a lot of things we can never change in this world, a lot we can, even gender now. Again if you don't like it change it, still upsetting how many folks make money trapping or love it to be outdoors or even trap 4 dollar coons for fun but wont join associations but will complain when its gone.

Easy to be an arm chair QB when it comes to spending someone else's money.When it [the market] returns many will jump back in and many of us here will respond by filling the need...sort of like corn and beans...

Who is going to buy the fur? Are they willing to pay more? Can your reduce labor, storage, freight, and other overhead costs? Will you mown or rent your buildings? Will you incorporate?

Need a business model.

I think Nancy is on to something here. One giant association sale that all the buyers can't afford to miss. Right now (in the west anyways) it is always a struggle for buyers who may have multiple sales happening at the same time and can only be at one.

The main problem is that the association sales that already exist aren't likely to want to give up their gigs for the betterment of all. They have too much invested to give it up.

Mentioned this before and think it would only help the industry. Even if its region specific to start, 2-3 state associations getting together and giving it a go.

Only one auction house is not good.....

"skin in the game" to me is important and would slow down much of the blame game and finger pointing. As stated above lots of facility space available and probably not any shortage of persons with auction and fur experience that maybe looking at working in the industry again. My preference would be that we not have one large sale, maybe 2-3 per year. As to ownership and or investment etc.? Many state associations have successful sales and use those to fund their programs and organizations. We would need to work on enhancing those fund sources and not displacing them.


Bryce

Could maybe get the NTA or FHA to sponsor one or one east one west. Use proceeds to help associations and promote fur.

I have a funny feeling lots of trappers would be appalled at an awful lot of fur that comes in. Grading with too many fingers and personal interests in the pie would be overwhelming to people only familiar with state auctions.

Then you could keep all.your crappy coons down there, that would be awesome.

I don't think the industry produces enough fur to support two North American auction houses in a way that both of them would be economically viable.
Also, who is going to finance such a risky enterprise at this time? Would you buy stock in a start-up like this?

That sounds like the ghost of Ed Meredith! He spoke of an American Trapper Auction, I support a Trappers auction.

It could be supported by all the folks that complain about low prices now matter where the sell.

I’m in. Great opportunity to learn from all the mistakes that occurred the last few years. It takes tuff times to flush out weakness.

Trappers usually support one another this way.

The first thing you need to do is hire a good organizer that knows the right people internationally in the biz.
I think Herman Jansen may be available.

What's the first thing you learn in econ 101?


Supply, and demand .


And...


Profits attract producers.



If there was any money in it, the auctions would still be kicking strong.



Typewriter manufacturers went through the same thing.

I would be afraid that the fur just might not sell as much as some people would wish. Then there would be a lot of neg comments about that auction house also. But I am for a US fur auction house. But we definitely need the right people running it.

I would send my fur to a US auction house. I never have sent anything north and don't plan on it.

Canada wont let buyers in. The U.S. issued warrants for a bunch of them the last time we had one.

The only way it would work is electronic in person bidding. Nobody able to see who is bidding. No colluding would mean no warrants.

No holding back fur. It sells for whatever is high bid. In todays market there is no way it would fly any other way. Holding fur is costly.

No loans. If you can't put together the funds you need to see you through your season, then you need a new plan.

No holding 16 auctions and "private treaty" in between. One auction. Same week every year. Like the second full week of May.

All fur gets a bar code. Graders have no clue where the the skin came from. Some WI fur will get sold in a lot with TX fur and vice versa.

After that comes the hard stuff. Employees, warehouse, auction room etc.

take some experienced business people to get it going

Only one auction per year? Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.

All pelts except for rats, ermine and squirrels already get a bar code. Graders have no idea where the pelts are from - unless they are bobcats or otter.

I had a similar thought but I envisioned it as more of a co-op. Possibly ran in conjunction with the National and State associations. The New York State Fair Grounds would be a suitable place to hold such an auction. It's got the space, there are still some big buyers in the North East.


WHAT IS A COOPERATIVE?
The International Co-Operative Alliance defines a cooperative, or co-op, as “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically controlled enterprise.” In other words, cooperatives are created by people who have a specific need and who are willing to work together to operate and organize a company that will meet that need

in order to have an auction it has to make money. what they are doing now aint working. fur harvesters is struggling. nafa tipped over. needs a different business model

FHA has exclusive contracts to auction fur from several fur marketing co-operatives.

The western US sales dont want the crap eastern and southern fur, so you can count em out of your plan.

How about a crap southern and eastern fur sale in kentucky, then a big bonfire at the end.

I figure at least two auctions, possibly three. Lots of buyers need fur before the seasons are over. For that matter lots of trappers and hunters skin their fur and throw it in the freezer and put up when the season is over. You can catch more if you are putting your time in on the line instead of being stuck in the fur shed. NAFA and FHA both had slightly later recieving dates to try and get that fur shipped and on auction. I know they have both played with recieving dates at times, attempting to make a last recieving date earlier than some of the Association sales, so people couldn't take their fur to a local auction and sell it if they were happy with the price and only if they weren't happy there send it north. I know that the first time I sent any Fur to FHA it was because they had a later recieving date than NAFA and I didn't have time to get all my fur put up for NAFA. I sent fur to them a couple times since for the same reason, they tended to have a later recieving date. But buyers want to buy fur when they need it. If you only offer one auction a year they are going to go someplace else where they can get a bunch of coyotes in January if they need them, rather than waiting until June.

I don't think strictly selling for whatever is high bid is a great idea. I think you'll lose too many shippers. If the auction house doesn't have long term storage facilities, you might offer something like association sales do. Buyer puts a minimum bid on skins and if they don't sell for that he pays a percentage of that and either picks them up or pays shipping to have them shipped back. Possibly say you can only minimum bid skins if you are there in person (wouldn't work well for an International or even National sale, but I know our state sale does that and we have skins shipped in from New York, Texas and all over. But they have the option of not selling only if they are there to turn down the bids and pick up the fur). Most people will sell for whatever high bid is, but this will keep buyers from colluding and giving absolute lowball offers, knowing the furs will sell no matter what.

Absolutely on the no loans. I had been offered "draws" from NAFA on furs I shipped in. I don't think that was good business practice, but allowing buyers to leave with furs that they had won but hadn't paid for (and had the checks clear) was much worse. No fur leaves until it is paid for either in cash, money order or certified check. Or if business checks are accepted, not until after they have cleared the bank.

Yes, fur should be graded on its quality, not where it came from. A good grader can tell you where it came from 90% of the time, but it shouldn't be marked on the fur (obviously anything that is CITES tagged is going to be marked where it is from).

I think it can be done and successfully. Getting it off the ground the first couple years and getting the confidence of the sellers first and then the buyers would be the tough part. Got to have the confidence of the sellers, so they'll send you their fur, and the first year or two that is going to be tough. If there is enough fur there the buyers will show up. You're going to have to be honest to the sellers and gain their confidence, and you're going to have to be honest to the buyers, if you tell them you have X number of coyotes, Y marten and Z bobcats and they show up and you only have half that, they may not bother to show up at the next sale, even if you have three times the furs they aren't going to believe you do.

I wouldn't necessarily say that. There is crap southern and eastern fur sent to our ITA sale, just if they aren't there in person to pick their fur up it is sold for whatever is bid on it, no minimums. It certainly makes my Furs look nice compared to that junk And really Colorado and Idaho bobcats may compete against each other, but we aren't competing with those South Texas bobcats any more than we are competing with nutria. Different products, but you get a buyer who has a furrier who wants about fifty southern cats, some nice beaver and some real nice pale coyotes he is going to try and go to a sale where he can pick up all those, instead of having to drive all over the country. If he has some other furriers that want some good western cats, some lynx and red fox, maybe a few coons and a pile of rats. Well he isn't going to pick all that up at a regional only sale. Right now his options are FHA, Groeny's, or traveling to a bunch of different sales, maybe he can find most of it at a regional sale that allows furs shipped in from everywhere, but chances are not all of it.

Kind of like my idea of moving the next FHA to ND getting shot down. Unbelievable. MD

Luxottica holds 80% of the eyeglass manufacturing and distribution in the US. Therefore they are able to capitalize the market..

If every trapper, predator hunter, fur rancher and road kill picker upper in the U.S. banned together the resulting co-op would be the Luxottica of the fur industry.

Or we can sit by and talk junk about the quality of fur from different sections and keep giving away fur to "private treaty" sales.

1. you would have to be a crook

2. you would have to have 10's of millions of dollars to get started

3 you would have to crawl in bed with the devil (mink ranchers)

Plus you know well as i do NAFA didn't give a crap about wild fur, their money was ranch mink and now that those are in the toilet you can't generate enough off them to have a flea market out back to sell the crappy wild fur at.

NAFA was like a Mercedes dealer ship with a use VW beetle lot out back, 100's come to buy a Mercedes so you advertise you have 100's of buyer to look at your rusted out VW which will get you the best price for it ANYWHERE when the fact is maybe 1 or 2 people that visit the Mercedes dealership even bother to walk around and see what's out back.

IF ranch mink go through the roof you might find someone to jump on that bandwagon again. Wild fur pretty much is dead in the water, in a few years when Canada goose stops buying wild fur the coyote market will be gone with the rest of it.

In the meantime keep sending in those .50 coons.

I would just as soon every state trappers association put on a sale or two. The states that are having them are doing pretty well, and prices are about the same as what FHA has been getting. It creates some revenue for the associations and give people a reason to be a member.

At the current prices I suspect it would be tough to make a profit or even cover operating expenses........but maybe.

I'm guessing there's some regulatory nonsense that's prevented somethinike this from already being done.

Probably a mandatory auction education course taught by Herman Jansen.

Required diversity training for all the graders...............colors and sizes ya know

Historically the fur trade has built several fortunes. Mostly on the trader side. As opposed to production side.

Seattle used to have a fur exchange what ever happened to that company?

Bought by the mink growers and most of us quit shipping to them immediately thereafter. A "regrading " of goods already graded didn't sit well with most of us.

Don't know whether they are still in business.


I did business with Ted Pappas at Western Canadian after that until he passed away.

Bankrupt. NAFA bought them. Bankrupt.

If memory serves there was a court conflict over the American legend label with HB of which they won. Shortly after they went out of business. Even in the ranch community people would waffle around on different houses. “You’re only as good as your last sale”

there is little demand for fur which is the root of the problem

Bingo yep the problem is fur is not selling! In the late 70s and early 80s every small town had a buyer maybe two several big auctions to choose from every one from the trappers, supply dealers, local buyers and auction houses were making money. Now we just trap for fun and let the antis run the show. I remember when the NTA annuals were packed and now we cant get folks to join and begrudge the only auction house left.

If there was any money in fur, Elon Musk would have already done it.

Hmmm, what skills would the organization need? Marketing, Event Planning, Finance, International business, Exchange rates understanding, Employee Management, Location Analysis, Logistics of getting fur from trapper to fashion, Lodging for buyers, sellers, members and employees-, Hospitality Management, Restaurant Cooperation, Transportation to and from hotels, Inventory Management, Facility storage, Fur Identification concerning ownership, Grading, Auction Facilities, Auctioneers, Callers, Spotters, Shipping, Trucking, Cold Storage, Arbitrage, Customer Relations and so much more from International shipping to theft control, Disease Prevention and Pandemic related concerns.
Imagine if a red fox is misplaced, a tag comes off, a buyer gets sick, spoilage occurs because of delays or cooling malfunction. These are some things one should think about in my opinion. I think I'll keep supporting others trying to pull existing auctions off.

MinkGuy - that is a very impressive list. You’ve got just about everything covered. Probably should add interpreters for those buyers that don’t speak English.

Russian, Italian, French, Korean, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, Greek, German, plus others.....

Has anyone offered WHERE these supposed furs are supposed to go? Isn't the reason that all these furs are so stockpiled, is because there isn't anyone buying them? Forgive me, if I'm mistaken.

I knew I was forgetting something- translators! Sorry- I think there are a couple more things -can anyone else help add to the list? Photography, social media,digital media, video production and more still. In all honesty I had a chance to visit NAFA and in their defense and Furharvesters - I don't know how anyone could pull that off- Hundres of thousands of furs of all species, sizes, grades- ranch and wild- marked and identified, graded and sorted moved from all over the world there and sold to buyers all over the world. Imagine the fortunes made and the fortunes lost. When I read the title of the post I thought - good idea and then I realized that if experts couldn't make it - what would make me think I could - without risking everything I've ever worked for. I forgot about private treaties, the governments of 100 nations, not only the United States rules and regulations for importing and exporting- and still more.Tarrifs, Ports of entry and Security!
Good luck to anyone but it is above my payscale and ability.
I can hear it now- I know I caught 23 muskrats and my receipt says you only got 22! Where is my $3.25 cents?
debt collection, credit ratings, Floating money and loans being recalled.
God forbid you don't have a mechanic for the tumblers or an HVAC crew for the coolers. What if the sanitation workers go on strike?
Oh Geez I don't mean to be a wet blanket but I think I'm going to buy another dozen traps and enjoy my fall! Oops I forgot Customs Agent knowledge and customs of the foreign buyers- do they like tea or coffee, shake never or with the left or right hand, bow or look you in the eye? Oh and you better show them a good time at night too - whatever that means I don't know what they'd expect.
I also forgot branding, brochure production, bidder registration, credit checking, delinquent or bad accounts, buyers that file bankruptcy and still I'm forgetting about negotiating with utilities for energy cost savings, site management from snow plowing to shoveling the walks- God forbid the airports are closed because of a blizzard or the borders for a pandemic. Nope I'm still thinking we should support the guys who already have their necks stretched out and their fortunes on the chopping block. Just a thought. Instead let's start promoting fur- give some if we have to to trendsetters, models and your wife or yourself! Let's go on the offensive against the antis.

I have people that do export.
I have a wearhouse on a port
I know people
I will hold your fur untill it sells and delay your payment for 30+++ day for me.to collect interest on my account

Heck yes!!!!! Iam in,....

How much better to start it with my China check?

MinkGuy ---Pretty impressive list. Pretty good summary.

Vinke----I'm trusting my 'possum collection to you.

I think it could be done, where there is a will there is a way. This new auction house would have to be efficiently to be effectively competitive. Basically just do one thing but do it very well. Nafa went down because of poor management decisions and who knows what all.

I would venture to guess there are buyers that are not pleased with fha and would welcome another alternative. How many who knows.

How happy are buyers and end users with groeny?

There are some good suggestions on this thread already.

Don, that was an impressive summary sir! A commodities business would be a risk venture that would best be started during bull years (now) but the asset in it (fur) is at historic lows in a "bull" rampage.
So, ain't no way venture capitalists would touch it outta fear of what might happen when the bears come to town.

Ain't gonna happen. The demand for fur as a commodity just hasn't kept pace with the 15 year bull run we're in and as a result tents are folding.
Not enough demand = money dudes ain't gonna fund it.

Pure biz 101 tenets.

Blessings,
Mark

i want the guy that goes to the auction to buy fur to set up shop in us and buy dirrect from the trappers we need the guy that grooney sells to set up shop we dont need another middle man we need direct buyers that want fur if i sell something if i can sell it direct i dont have to mess with a middle man and all their fees and bs same with the buyer

The tree huggers and anti's that run most of the state and federal politician's would make it so expensive that it couldn't be done. Great idea, and I would for sure put my fur into it. We can always dream of simple solutions even if it can't happen.

Is that how you were able to get to where you are now? When times got tough you just threw your arms in the air said ok i give up I'm finished. Not saying it's going to happen or would be easy, but they're are people every single day in this great country that decide to go out on a limb and do exactly what mingguy said would have to be done to get the ball rolling.

It most definitely would take a special person or group of people but imo it could be done successfully.

The guy that Groenwald sells to isn’t going to want to deal with individual trappers. No way. No how. Ain’t gonna happen. Even in the 1800s there was always a middleman.

Imagine a buyer that buys thousands and thousands of pelts and spends million of dollars every year setting up shop so that he can buy your 75 coon. Take that times several thousand other individual trappers.

Applying your idea to other commodities. Say you want a gallon of milk. You find a cow and milk her yourself. Or you want an apple - you plant a tree and wait for it to produce fruit.

One of the strangest suggestions I’ve ever heard. Sorry.

That's very true, look at the paperwork and costs involved just to get common species like coons and rats shipped between Canada and the U.S., going either way! Otter or wolves and cats just about require an attorney familiar with International Importation Law. All this seems to be to make things more difficult and provide more government jobs/welfare.

Nothing is impossible for the man who does not have to do it himself.

Stuff like this does not get done by a bunch of folks on the internet saying "somebody" should start a US fur auction house. Stuff like this is driven by capitalism, where somebody risks their hard earned money to start a business and then expects to make a profit in return. So, we would just be back to complaining about outrageous fees for shipping, handling, drumming, cities, and commissions to pay employees, operating expenses and, heaven forbid, some reasonable amount of profit.

All this in a nice warm building. Does sound better than my job.

To me the biggest question would be how much fur would have to be on the table to get the end users to the house with the check book in hand.

I think the best idea yet is when the idea of several states or a region that would or could pull this off. They are already having sales, now they super size it to get the big boyz their.

Imo the best time to get this going is when the market is suppressed.

South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming would be the 4 best states to start it together.

I would have 2 different ways to sell, 1 sell some the same way they do now and get your fur back if it doesn't sell. or 2 sell the same way fha and nafa did in huge lots that you can't get your fur back.

Auction houses do not own the fur so they don't need to leverage their inventories. They do need to develop routes or collection systems, establish inventory storage facilities and develop their intake, ID, marketing and operational systems. Due to the fact that there are not profit and losses on owned pelts the entire operational revenues are based on the commissions earned from the sale of other owners of the auctioned fur. That to me indicates that there needs to be a critical mass of revenues that can only come from sales volumes and prices. Low volumes and low prices would be the poorest combination. Buyers of fur can buy lower cost fur and maybe profit from those sales. Obviously high volumes and high prices is the best case for auctions, if they stay strictly in the auction arena. The one thing that ranch fur did was maintain higher volumes and reasonably stable numbers for the most part. Wild fur harvests show a strong tendency to not hold stable numbers as harvest is more price driven. The decisions by some auction leadership and heightened optimism followed by rapid and decisive down swings has changed that for the current time frame.
Trappers could form coops or even a fraternal type non profit where all profits are returned to either trapper organizations or trappers, however membership would be decided or defined. Retained earnings or stocks could be used to fund the business along with needed loans and returned to members over time. Those time periods can vary significantly. The real issue before serious planning would be what is the realistic outlook for fur and especially in our case wild fur for the future. Continued long term low volumes with sporadic price spikes in limited species really is a market for profit driven firms that have strong equity basis or are willing to accept financial risks.
Most trappers agree that $3-$4 rats do not cover all costs to a trapper but someone is making money selling those rats into the end markets.
Bryce

Rpmartin’s suggestion about several state associations getting together to have a regional salelooks good on paper.

Only problem I see is who will be in charge. Even if you have a committee of 2 people from each association, they still have to decide on a format.

My experience with western fur sales is that no 2 are exactly alike. Lots of minor differences. Each association thinks their sale is the best format. I doubt you could get them to agree on exactly how the sale should be run.

Take that one step further Nancy and let's say we do get them to agree on a format. Would the combined fur of 4 or 5 big association sales attract international buyers? Would we have trapper lots or auction graded lots? I can't see many international buyers willing do deal with trapper lots.

Get the trappers organizations and individual trappers to put up the money(invest)same as how OTA started,and same as how FHA started after OTA went under.
Need a board of directors from that group,then you need to hire the right people then away you go.
OTA hired Taylor Carmicheal and later Alex Shief,and FHA Hired Fred Glover.

So first you need the investors(which appoints a board) and second the board to hire the right industry people.

there is very little or no demand for fur. untill that changes no point putting on an auction without or limited buyers no matter where the auction is held. investors realize this.

Been reading this post and finding it very interesting .I have one question just curious . What kind of money would it take to start something like you all are talking about.

If you remember when OTA went down the fur industry was in the same shape.No banks would invest-but the trappers did. Trappers and their organizations bankrolled FHA successfully at that time.
Trappers who have been around any length of time know that the fur industry always goes up and down-and up again.

It can be done but it takes people with guts to do it.

What I want to know Boco is how much money are or did the First Nations pump into FHA to rate 5 board members?

I was talking to Greg Schroeder a couple weeks ago about fha renting a facility stateside and have the auction down here. He said it won't work. Said it had to do with the US being too restrictive on their visa's to come and go out of the US. Said it was tried, I believe he said Hudson Bay, New York, back before nafa, they tried international auctions in NY. Was a flop on all accounts, he told me. If you want to get all the details, call Greg at Cambridge fha facility, he can fill you in as to why a stateside auction won't attract enough buyers to be worth doing. To many gov regulations to content with.

I believe they matched the non native trappers contributions,dont remember the total amounts at that time,Gibb would know.At that time there was about half the number of FN trappers in Ontario compared to non native.Their contribution came thru the UOI-one of 3 treaty organizations in Ontario.I know there is always a treaty 9 member on the board so some of the UOI contributions must have come from treaty 9 and treaty 3.
Got good support from some US members as well who shipped fur to OTA.

Maybe I should call greg and remind him FHA a few years ago routinely sold fur at an Auction in the U.S. and make money doing it. Unless Seattle doesn't count? Not building a lot of confidence here.

"Fur Harvesters is pleased to announce the following results from our February 20, 2006 auction held in Seattle, WA, in conjunction with American Legend. Demand for wild fur continues to be strong. Articles such as fisher, marten, mink, muskrat and beaver are realizing prices that are double from just a year ago. This is a strong indication of the new found strength and popularity of wild fur."


"SALE RESULTS – FEBRUARY 18, 2008
PRICES SHOWN IN US DOLLARS
As anticipated the cold weather that came early across much of the Northern Hemisphere combined with the shortage of production resulted in strong increases on many articles. Levels obtained on the February 18th auction held in Seattle Wa, saw prices on marten, lynx and lynx cat, climb to levels unseen for 20 years. "


2011

"Prices are on the rise which reflects the current strong and growing demand for wild fur. Our exceptional collection of Western Lynx
Cats, Canadian and Alaskan Lynx were the highlights of the sale. Trim type Coyote and Red Fox saw dramatic increases over FHA
January levels. Bread and butter items such
as Beaver, Otter, Muskrat, Wild Mink, Raccoon and Fisher saw solid advances. Sable saw excellent demand for the heavier qualities, however the light wei
ght types did meet some resistance. Taxidermy items sold well at rising levels. What was most encouraging about our sale was the fact that virtually every market was active. Fur Harvesters Auction would like to thank the International Fur Trade buyers for making this auction an overwhelming success. As well we would like to thank American Legend Cooperative for being such a gracious host. "

They also sold in Helsinki hosted by saga infrastructure.
Wasnt worth it in the long run either.
They do work hard to market our fur,obviously.
They come a long way from those first sales in the empire hotel in 1950's.

In my opinion, trapper sales, no matter if it is one association or several associations combined, will NEVER attract international buyers. Over the 47 years OTC has been in business, they have had various international buyers attend their sales. The first time was Jack Skolnick out of New York City. He bought 2 mink. There have been several other occasions.

The best thing that might happen IF an international buyer did attend a Trappers sale is that the international buyer would make a connection with a small dealer who would buy for him at sales and in the country. That has happened several times.

Two things work against a trapper sale attracting international buyers.

1. They want volume. 2000 bobcats or 17,000 muskrats is NOT volume.

2. They want professionally graded lots. They don’t want to buy beaverpeelers mixes lot of 50 beaver. They want 150 LM brown slight damage beaver. Peeler has 1 of those skins. They don’t want the other 49.

Deal breaker right there.

I know Trappers complain about “middle men”. But in my opinion, “middle men” are a fact of life in the fur business. Always has been (.Jim Bridger didn’t sell his beaver pelts to a hat maker in London, he sold to a fur company, who then sold to the hat maker) and always will be.

Apparently, it only took them 14 years of losing money to figure this out.

Why would the international buyers buy anywhere besides the Canadian casinos? If they can't get what they want for a good price then they'll just wait for the pt room deals.

If that fur never made it to canadada and they still want it then they will have to come to where it's being auctioned off at.

I bet very little Canadian fur goes to the pt room. Canadian's get taken care of, U.S. trappers are the first ones to be thrown under the bus when push comes to shove.

How do you suppose that works? Do you actually believe that Canadian and US fur isn't sorted together?

I bet they know which bundles are mainly from a certain part of north America.

Drifter did point out i was a Johnny come lately, but you don't have to have a lifetime of experience to figure some of this stuff out.

Bundles of which types of fur and how would that work?

The guy has no clue Steve.
A few years ago the top lot of marten at nafa had pelts from Labrador,Northern Que,North east Ont,north west Ont,a couple of the western provinces and Alaska.

I bet I'm way closer to the truth than you two Yahoos are.

Boco, when you're in the woods and trying to dissuade a bear do you go YAHOO! YAHOO!

It's easier to call names than discuss things civilly.

I thought that was the Indian tribe you two belonged to.

Furs are sorted by grade and quality. So yeah, they can generally tell that the majority of this thin haired lot of beaver is from the south. But Boco might have a couple of them summer caught damage control beaver in that lot. FHA isn't going to lot stuff by area it is from and tell the buyers, "bid on this first, because it is Canadian fur."

If they were going to do something crooked to "take care of" preferred customers they would do it on the bookkeeping end, not on the sorting floor. I'm not saying they do this, but think about it, furs are lotted out by grade. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to put all the furs that look alike together and then just mark down that "preferred buddy's" furs are in these good lots and rp's furs are in these lots over here?

Some have serious reading comprehension issues. I never said no Canadian fur goes pt. I said i bet very little of it goes to the pt room.

wissmiss i thought the same thing when you started this thread you have 2 auction houses the biggest one is gone the other havnt had any luck moving much fur for several years or get good enough prices to average out what trappers dont sell or throw away because they know they wont make the grade theres a lot of milk that gets sold directly to consumers same with apples and the same with furs they dont all go through the auction and as fast as the last house is going south you better hope there is a more direct route and soon (not something you and others dream about at night)

If you want it to happen you gotta believe in it.
Many trappers(directors and members) put up everything they owned more than once.
The first time to buy the OTA building on bond street and the second time to keep it from going into recievership in the early 90's(FHA).

Make that three Yahoos. Trappers goods are offered in “intersorted” lots. Find your Merriam Webster and look it up.

Northwest Territories (NWT) fur harvesters, in partnership with the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT), are proud to confirm the continuation of the wild fur marketing program.

Under the brand label Genuine Mackenzie Valley Furs™ (GMVF), all NWT harvested fur that meets our standard for high quality, will continue to be offered in exclusive GMVF lots at auction and under private treaty by Fur Harvesters Auction in North Bay.

P.S. FHA definitely does things to benefit their Board of Directors, who are primarily Canadian. Has to do with what they concentrate their marketing on, and how they inter-sort. Maybe even deeper? It should be this way, since FHA was created to benefit the Board of Directors.

Created to benefit the trappers.
The trappers choose their respective directors.

FHA

"Our Mission Statement

To promote and enhance Canada's oldest land based industry and offer the best possible service and fur products for the benefit of all."

Is that like the opposite of outersorted lots.

Found it.