Well folks the auction is over for our Muskrats and Raccoons.  What a trip!

I can’t tell you everything about it, but I can tell you this!  More than 24% of our rats went for over $10!  That was a nice surprise and the top price paid to us was $14!  We’ll take it!

We learned quite a bit about the auction process and are going to do it again next year.  We have made some quick assessments of this years auction and one of them is that we need to be a little less “expecting” when it comes to the bottom line.  Listening to the live broadcast today the auctioneer pounded out the numbers and the gavel.  There were strings of rats that got broken up because of buyers not wanting all the lots within the string.  I didn’t think that could happen, it was my understanding that the bid on the whole string….but what do I know?  Nothing.  It was very interesting to listen to and the dialogue between the buyers, the auctioneer and the main man calling the shots as to a sale or no sale was fun to hear.  We even had some of our rats not sell.  Raccoons too.

We also concluded that because they had nearly 4 1/2 million mink that sold at this auction and only 250,000 or so muskrats that the mismatch or inequity of the balances caused the prices paid for rats to be down from what we figured they would be.  We also didn’t know until just recently that the weather in both China and Russia was warmer than usual.  You wouldn’t think that would drive the market price for furs, but it apparently does.  It was the same with this auction and with every line of furs so far sold.  What will Lynx Cat sell for tomorrow?  They have been getting good prices in the $500 plus range for years, will it hit that at this auction?  I highly doubt it.

So, we have learned something and are very glad we aren’t the buyers of the skins we sold.  We made quite a bit of money and we don’t have to hit the bar and cry in our beers because we bought rats for too high a price and then just got ripped at the auction.  The price you pay for getting greedy.

Bears Butt

May 19, 2014