Until we sell our furs I think I’ll continue to put related stories in the Daily Trapping Events category, it makes sense to me and I doubt you really care one way or another.  Yesterday I went to an auction site that had their auction last week, Fur Harvesters (http://www.furharvesters.com/) and looked at the prices paid for the various furs they had.  The price of muskrat was not what I expected to see, but still higher than we would get from a local buyer.  They had just short of 90,000 muskrats in their auction and they sold 98% of them at an average of $10.65.  Lower than what has been the average price, but still pretty high when you consider a silly little muskrat fur.  The bigger item was the price paid for the “Top” furs…$23!  Can you imagine paying $23 for one muskrat fur?  It makes you wonder what on earth would make one fur worth $23 when the average is going for around $11?

I have done a little research in the area trying to find out what drives a fur to be of more value than another and have yet to find out why.

I suppose, like a person who is into harvesting and hanging on his wall, a bunch of trophy animals of one species and he only needs one more to have obtained his quest of having one of each, then and only then would the value of that one animal be so much in demand (in his own mind) to make it worth selling his children, his house, all his properties and farming out his wife to get the money to buy the tag to go hunt it.  Of course not to harvest it would be out of the question and he would go to any end to make it a 100% success.

BUT, there are sooooo many muskrats in the world, why would a person pay over $20 for one?  It makes no sense to me.

Our big time dream for this season is to find that buyer who just has to have our lot of furs and will pay big time bucks for them!  I think I’ll write to one of the auction houses and see if they will respond to my question about “top lot” furs.  In the mean time, look at the picture of Weasel and the two rats he is holding up.  Certainly the small one would be worth less than the big one…well maybe not…what if you were a taxidermist putting together a scene of a mommy and daddy muskrat and some babies running around and you needed one more baby muskrat to finish it off.  That little guy could be worth a small fortune.  On the other hand, let’s say you are making a muskrat coat for your lovely wife and you needed one more large pelt to finish it off and it has to be just the right color and the big rat was the perfect one for the job…it could be worth a small fortune as well.

Demand…meet…Supply!

Bears Butt

March 17, 2014