I'm on the way now to meet him here in Tennessee. I will post prices later on this afternoon and see how much difference there is in Tennessee fur .

Agree wholeheartedly.

Awesome job Bur! Your kids will remember these times their entire life. Mine have all flown the nest, but they still have the memories!

Thanks to all.

Dirt, I agree, probably could do better. But, I know the game, and I was trying to generate cash. GFW is the only thing close to a country buyer we have in SC. The first year I ever put up fur was 2013, and I shipped to NAFA. Good clearances, good money, all was well. Little did I know that I hit the highest fur market in recent years my first time at it. Shipped again in 2014 and it took 3 years for all of my goods to sell. After that I started having stuff tanned and was making more hats anyways.

I have a pretty good stockpile of tanned goods here. I started by making myself a hat to wear. I liked it, got some compliments, and had some orders. I can sell as many as I can hand sew. I just don't have the time I used to. My rules for trapping and trapping hobbies is that the hobby must pay for itself. I needed the cash in hand to make this purchase for the Bonis. This is GFW's second SC route, and I was happy last year. No boxing, or shipping costs, or commissions, and check when you leave. That's what I was after. I actually really wanted to keep the bobcats to sew with, but, I'll practice up with my machine on what I have, and maybe get some more next year. My wife wants a fur stole, and I am going to make her one from some otters. I hope that will turn into some other business (I think, don't want to be tooo busy)

So yes, the goal is to reach more end users, like I am doing now with my hand sewn hats and mittens. But, I needed the cash from these pelts to purchase the machine. I think the Bonis will expand my capabilities and shorten my time frame. Will post some pictures of the new machine when it is up and running.

Thanks for all the kind words, the kids had a big time and were telling their grandparents tonight all about the trip to meet the fur buyer. I was grinning ear to ear.

I sold at the TN stop last night. There were more people there than I thought would be there considering it is a new stop. By the time I got to sell it was dark out. Seemed like a few country buyers were there selling stuff to GFW. Here are my averages:

Beaver (put up and green combined) 33 beaver $7.25 av - had quite a few little ones
Muskrats $3.83 av only had 3
Otter $27 av 5 otter and one was a little one
Coon 17 total $5.82 av
Mink $5 av only had 2
Red Fox 6 total $7.67 av
Bobcat $23.33 av had 3

That was just what I had to sell, no cherry picked fur, what I had went.

I will say I saw some super rough looking fur being brought in. A lot of it was sent back with the seller. Everything from improperly scraped coon, to fur out coon, pelts that were stretched crooked, tainted pelts, green fur that was slimy and slipping. It was amazing some of the fur guys were trying to sell. There was also some really well handled fur, but it was the exception in the overall volume.

That same crappy handled fur gets shipped to NAFA/FHA. And people still wonder why their averages are so low. Yep

Thanks for the update Anthony, glad you were happy with your sale. Gary is a nice fellow and he's doing the southern trapping community good by making these stops. If both parties are happy, it keeps people trapping, and that's good for the future of trapping.

Bur,
Thanks for your reply. I understand you wanting cash in hand and I am glad your selling worked out. When and if you are able to, I think what Dirt said about tannning and selling would be something to look into. I know that tanned bobcats are awesome (southern included!). With you being able to sew, then what wissmiss said would be the way to go. I say that because those hats you made for your kids are beautiful and look well done. Just a thought.

Again, I really enjoyed seeing your photos and especially seeing you getting your children involved. A great way to go IMO. Please make a post when you make them new hats. (OR anything else you do. Would be interested in seeing them). Thanks.

Congratulations on the new son on the way! Another skinning/trapping partner.

God bless and happy trails. Swampfox

I sold in Tennessee also and I will agree with Anthony some of the stuff was junk . I think the majority of people there was from out of state . I know the other 2 from Tennessee was country buyers. I didn't get to trap alot but I was happy with the prices I got . The cats was off color and small, coons was 2x and coyotes was just Tennessee coyotes.

Bobcats $18.75 average
Coyote $ 13.88 average
Coons $5.50. average

All of us trappers in the southern US that sold to GFWC have our money in our hands and if yall are like me are already thinking about how to pile the fur up next year.

I've always said if you trap in the south you have to work harder to make the same money.....ie.catch more, charge to trap, utilize the live market, utilize the meat market, the taxidermy market, tan b4 selling the pelts, or a buy a fur sewing machine, etc...

I'm just glad we even have a market for our fur.

I guess I gotta move further north to find that magic place where you can just dump your pelts at a fuybuyer or Auction and your rich. Been having to market most of species outside those two options since the beginning. The grass ain't greener here.

Your grass is much greener than the deep south......

That's for sure

@ Bur--I have the same feeling as you. I sell to my country buyer and I leave with a check. No waiting two years or more if your fur doesn't sell right away. We are doing hats, mitts, etc. as well. I have customers for tanned furs as well. Some just like them tanned as throws. You just have to work to find a market. I agree that my fur "hobby" must pay for itself. According to the IRS, it does.

I sold everything to Groenewold this year. I’m sure I could’ve got more at NAFA on my cats but I still have 25 cats from last year that haven’t sold. Until NAFA starts having better clearance on the type of fur I have I will continue to sell to Groenewold. I don’t have the time to put up fur or trap like I have in the past so having an outlet for green beaver and otter helps a lot. I hated selling 67 otter for just over 20 bucks a piece but after commission it is within a couple dollars of what I got for the otters I sent to NAFA last year. One big difference is I sold green otter to Groenewold and had my money that day. The put up otter I sent to NAFA took about 10 months before I got my check.

I really don't understand people's lack of patience when selling fur. If it's a hobby, you probably are not in desperate need of the money. I do it for part of my living and have held out for years selling stuff to get what I want. Prices are so low on most stuff, if you sell it to a furbuyer or Auction, you are just going to lose money or make less than any other alternative job, it would be pointless from a business perspective too.

Holding fur is a huge risk - the freezer can die and you don't notice until its to late, the fur shed burns down, bugs or mice get in them. I have heard about every horror story outcome you can think of from people who tried to hold fur until the prices come back up. On southern fur even if the market does go up our fur isn't going to make a huge jump. Down here if you are fur trapping it is strictly a numbers game. I know going into the season what I need to catch to make the dollar amount I am shooting for. I don't want to be holding over any fur after the season. If its gone I don't have to worry about it spoiling or going bad. Tanning fur is an option, but it costs money, and I really don't think most of us here in the south could sell a couple hundred bit up, nasty looking hatter beaver, a pile of nutria, or even all of our flat rabbit-backed cats if we got them tanned. Of course there is also the huge $$$ required to get that amount of fur tanned.

Not all of us live in places where people will shell out the cash for tanned critters or fur mittens or hats. I don't even live in the deep south and it rarely gets cold enough to wear fur items here. Also, not everyone has the skill it takes to be a furrier. It all comes down to what you are trying to accomplish. For me trapping is a 5 month season. When that season is over it is time to switch gears to growing things and taking care of the nursery plants, bees, and other farm stuff. No time to worry about trying to sell fur once spring gets rolling.

I'd rather sell it for a fair market price, collect my check and get on with the rest of my year.

GFW did way better for me on put otter than NAFA - and that was before even figuring the $3 CITES charge and the 9% commission. They also did better on coons and rats. On cats I think there are better places to sell them, but the way the commercial cat market is right now it is good to know there are places to move them. Its nice to have a place to sell green beaver for almost the exact same average as put up beaver.

Just the way I feel about marketing fur your mileage may vary.

Anthony

^^^Exactly. Worded well! It's a southern thang! That you understand...

I enjoy trapping. For family reasons I worked 1st shift through trapping season this year. Being on 1st shift all but eliminates live market trapping, by far the most lucrative market I have. Instead of taking the year off I focused on beaver trapping because I can check after work and can check submerged conibears every 3 days. I made a little money and had fun doing it. I also worked 200 hours of overtime during trapping season. I didn’t have as much fun doing that but I made about 5 times the money as did off of my fur. I guess it all depends on your circumstances.

I also learned that the little red wagon can hold about 200 green beavers. Now I know I’ll need to find a bigger trailer if I decide to go after beavers very hard. I also learned that 7 freezers just isn’t enough.

In most cases and for the more common species it doesn't pay to hold on to large quantities of fur.Best to keep it moving thru the pipeline one way or the other.When the raw fur prices spike,we always second guess ourselves for selling too early,but no one has a crystal ball.
It doesn't hurt to hold some specific grades/species of pelts as a hedge.