Grading
Furs – Part 1
Article from May
- Jun 2010 Buckeye Trapper
by Jack
Hatfield
The kind of grade you get for your fur will determine how much
you get for them. Grading is the most important part of the buyer-seller
chain. Sell to someone who doesn’t know how to grade properly
and it’s a crapshoot. They may shortchange you or themselves.
Been there and seen it happen. It pays to sell to someone who
knows what they’re looking at. Usually buyers who can’t
grade properly aren’t in business over one season because
they either go broke or lose so much it’s not profitable
to stay in business. It’s said a fool and his money are
soon parted. That really is true with fur buyers who don’t
know how to grade.
It takes time to learn fur grading. There’s a lot to it.
If ever there’s something you need to serve an apprenticeship
for, it learning how to grade. No two wild fur skins are ever
exactly the same. There are major differences in some while it
may be subtle in others. It takes a trained, educated, experienced
eye to see the differences. The biggest problem with grading furs
is there are few set guidelines for how to grade specific pelts.
No two graders ever see pelts the same, so they’ll usually
come up with different grades. Basically though, a good pelt is
good and a bad pelt is bad. When a grader tries to tell you that
your good ones are bad, he’s taking advantage of you and
ripping you off. If it’s not highly evident, always have
your grader explain why he threw out a particular pelt you felt
was good. Honest graders will be glad to explain because they
want to educate you. Educated sellers are always easier to deal
with than uneducated ones. Dishonest graders want to keep you
in the dark. If they become offended when you ask for an explanation,
beware of them.
There are two basic kinds of grades – a buyer’s grade
and a seller’s grade. When someone buys, he will grade you
tough because he wants to make as much money as possible. Some
will virtually count every hair on a fur pelt. That’s known
as a tough grader and they’ll cut you no slack on any pelt
that’s borderline between being good or bad. You’ll
lose money selling to them because they grade too tough. You can
expect such grades farther up the selling chain like world auctions,
but they don’t belong with country buyers. Switch buyers
if yours insists on grading you as hard as he can. He’s
simply not being fair with you. Learn as much as you can about
fur grading and they won’t be able to take advantage of
you. Know what you have and have a ballpark figure of what your
pelts are worth before you sell to anybody. If the offer isn’t
even close, walk. Dishonest buyers thrive on sellers who don’t
know what they have.
On the other hand, a seller’s grade will always be easier
than the buyer’s grade. Some buyers who graded you though
may go through the parcel after you’ve sold and “upgrade”
them for himself. He’ll then attempt to sell them to his
buyer the way he upgraded them. He’ll take every pelt he
considered borderline and threw it out on you and upgrade it to
a good one. Some buyers play that grading game religiously and
make a pile of money doing so. That is one reason I always stayed
away from tough graders. Most are dishonest.
You’re entitled as a trapper to look at your fur this way.
You caught them, you handled them, and you did a lot of hard work
doing these two things. You caught them, you handled them, and
you did a lot of hard work doing those two things. No buyer should
ever be entitled to make more money on them than you. He’s
entitled to make a profit, but you should come away with the bulk
of the money they’re worth. Some buyers don’t care
how hard you worked or what you’re entitled to get. That
always irked me. That gets worse the farther up the buying-selling
chain those furs go. At world auction, no buyers care about you.
They care only about how cheap they can buy your furs. That’s
part of the fur trade that is as old as the trade. I once sold
three coyotes, which I had an hour’s labor each in processing,
for 78 cents on a Canadian sale. Do you think their buyer cared?
Absolutely not! It can be a brutal business and often is. Those
coyotes weren’t worth 78 cents, but much more. Still, that’s
all I got and nobody cared by me.
Let’s take a look at our most common furs and see how they’ll
be graded and why they’re graded that way.
Mink
Mink will be graded by sex, color, and size. Quality, damage,
or primeness will also be used as grading criteria. All furs will
be graded as per those three things. Male mink are usually twice
as large as females. They usually bring twice as much money based
on that. Females are thinner and silkier than males, but make
the best garments. However, because of their size it takes more
to make that garment. Off grade mink will bring only a fraction
of good ones. Off-grades will be unprimed, springy, damaged, or
cottons. Cottons, those with white under fur, must be dyed and
seldom bring one-third of full price that good ones do. Un-prime
ones are either caught too early or too late. Pelt leather doesn’t
lie and those early caught ones will have blue or black pelt leather,
indicating they have little or no fur. That includes short guard
hairs and little or no under fur. They are considered low grades
and bring a dollar or two. Springy mink will have their hair follicles
showing through the pelt leather. That indicates they may already
be shedding fur or are about to start. They won’t have much
fur when tanned and are virtually worthless, being bought as low
grades or having no value. Nobody likes to get back a piece of
leather without any fur when they’ve paid to have a fur
tanned. Depending on the amount of damage and where it is damaged,
mink will bring different prices, but none will be top dollar.
Repairs cost money and the trapper pays for them. Old scars, black
kidney spots, and cuts are common damages on mink. They must be
repaired.
Different sections of the world produce different qualities of
fur on mink. Country buyers seldom pay attention to sections,
but they’re graded as per section on world auctions. Why?
Because southern mink won’t mix with northern ones. Sections
tend to mix only with their own specific one as per color, texture,
and quality. Arkansas mink tend to be much redder colored, shorter
napped, with thinner under fur. They mix only with their own kind
and so do other sections. At world auctions, mink are sold in
lots that are ready to be tanned and made into garments so they
must all be the same. Mink have so many subtle differences it
truly does take a trained eye to spot them. Guard hairs have different
lengths. Under fur has different thicknesses. Color varies so
much it’s doesn’t quite match the rest. Its fur may
be thicker, thinner, lighter colored, darker, or something else
that’ll show. Mink must be matched perfectly to make a top-notched
garment. Look at most garments closely and they aren’t.
When you sell mink to a country buyer, it’ll be the easiest
grade they’ll get. It gets tougher down the line. You’ll
be paid for a male or female. It’ll either be a good or
bad one. Your small young-of-the-year males will be bought with
females because that’s where they belong for both size and
fur texture. That’s it. There are usually three prices:
male, female, or off-grade. Ship to a world auction and see how
many grades you get.
Raccoon
Raccoon are Ohio trappers’ bread and butter fur. They weren’t
always. Muskrats once were. There are basically six size grades
for raccoon. A board is used to measure each dried pelt and a
set price is given for each one. Off-grades include threes, damaged,
low grades, and no values. Add those six size grades to the fur
off-grades and it makes ten. There can be two to five dollars
between each grade, so raccoon prices vary greatly. I long for
the days when raccoon were either large, medium, small, or lows.
That’s four grades and they produce basically that same
averages today’s ten grades do. Country buyers seldom buy
as per color, but farther up the chain there’s A, B. C,
and D colors, which may have a five dollar bill per pelt difference
in each grade.
Fur thickness, primeness and damage produce a number three grade.
Tougher buyers have also been known to split ones and twos and
pay different money for them. That’s splitting hairs and
a buying gimmick that I never endorsed. One and two quality raccoons
mix readily and their fur differences are so subtle they’re
barely noticeable. I never split them. There is an obviously difference
between good and bad raccoon (low grades). They may be damaged,
between being prime and low grade, or so badly handled or extremely
ugly that they’ll mix with nothing but their own kinds.
Unprimed sow raccoons are often threes, but if they’re extremely
unprimed, will be lows. Some early caught, not fully prime pelts
will also be threes. Usually there are large or small threes.
And they bring only a fraction of a good pelt, but more than a
low. It’s said the ability to grade raccoon properly hinges
on the ability to separate the off-grades properly. Sometimes
that can be tough. Nearly anyone can tell a good pelt from a bad
one, but the differences between the off-grades must be learned
by handling lots of them. Only then will it come automatically
to graders.
Raccoon are also graded as per section. That’s done by both
country and auction buyers. It must be because raccoon quality
and fur thickness may vary greatly from state to state. Southern
raccoon are called “coat coons.” Their relatively
light weight, small sizes, and bright colors make them a natural
fur producing coats. Because of their thin fur quality and small
sizes, they bring only a fraction of the northern raccoon. There
have been a few years when that wasn’t true, but most years
they don’t bring very much. Generally the further north
you go, the larger and heavier furred raccoon get. Undoubtedly
the weather controls that, but so do genes. It seems the more
inactive raccoon are, the larger they grow.
Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Iowa raccoon tend to be
huge, colorful, heartily furred, and command higher prices annually
than any others. Why not? Fur quality, size, and color are all
there. Most years they’ll bring nearly twice as much as
semi-heavy or southern coat raccoon. Most eastern raccoon are
considered semi-heavies, which means their under fur and guard
hairs aren’t as thick and long as western raccoon. Still
they’re heavier than southerns. Each of those sections must
be used with their own because they’re so different from
each other. Adjoining states Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York
produce different textured raccoon. West Virginia and Virginia
raccoon mix, but don’t do so with other so-called semi-heavies.
A raccoon’s longitude and latitude make a great difference
in what kind of fur it has. We are a big sprawling country that
produces all sorts of raccoon furs. There are short napped raccoon
in Florida that are red, called saltwater ‘coon, and have
fur so short it resembles felt. Near the Canadian boarder, raccoon
are so thickly furred it’s unreal. There truly are tremendous
variations in raccoon furs. When they get to Canadian auctions,
they all get sorted into a million different grades. Like mink,
they must be graded as per section, quality, color, and various
other things.
Under fur in the fur trade is called “nap.” Its density
is what holds in a raccoon’s body heat and keeps it warm.
Usually the colder the climate, the thicker the nap. That’s
why northern raccoon have such thick fur. Can you imagine what
a coat would look like if was made from raccoon fur from down
south and up north? It would have flat sections and raised ones
that would look terrible because that furs wouldn’t blend
together. That’s why raccoon pelts must be graded as per
section.
All sorts of things happen to raccoon throughout their lives that
will damage their pelts. Many are permanent. They survive encounters
with cars that leave permanent scars, which will be devoid of
fur. They may encounter predators and dogs and escape with wounds
that leave scars. Entire patches of fur may be missing around
scars. Mating marks on their back and neck may never heal properly.
Bare or rubbed spots are nearly always there during breeding season.
There’s an endless list of why raccoon pelts may be damaged.
Raccoon hunters’ dogs are one of the most common. Usually
the older a raccoon is, the better its chances are that it’ll
have a damaged pelt. Raccoon lead pretty tough lives.
Raccoon come into heat every two weeks until they get bred. They
do not have more that one litter per year. When sow raccoons get
bred very late and have late litters, their pelts are virtually
worthless during the trapping season. They’ll have little
under fur, will dry black, and the areolas around their teats
will be jet black circles on their bellies. Those late litter
bearing females are a fur buyer’s worst nightmare. You must
recognize them immediately and throw them out as low grade or
number three. Sellers see a big raccoon and feel they’re
getting ripped off. You cannot pay top dollar for such low end
raccoon and stay in business. That’s why it’s important
to buy fur instead of size. Those big females will remain unprimed
because the pups nurse and take away all the protein that would
have gone into producing fur. If you catch such a raccoon that
is still alive, release her. If your dogs tree one that has her
small pups in the same tree or nearby ones, don’t shoot
them – you won’t get much for them. The entire fur
business benefits when you leave them alone.
There is no such thing as a perfect raccoon pelt. Some are beautiful
and others ugly. The bulk live between those extremes. Graders
must send them as per where they belong. That’s not always
easy.
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