FOREST OF FURS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 138, 13 June 1934, Page 12

FOREST OF FURS.

SCENES AT THE SALES. (By NELLE M. SCANLAN.) There can bo no greater contrast than between a wool sale and a fur sale. In Australia and New Zealand we are familiar with the excitement and shouting, even the barking of hoarse wool buyers, in their eagerness to get a choice lot. There is a tense silence at a fur sale, while thousands of pounds are bid for furs. Canada is the principal source of the world's furs, but London has, in recent years, been the scene of the world's greatest fur sales. Formerly Berlin, Amsterdam and Leipzig were the chief centres. It is just one more function in trade that London has captured. Like wool, the furs are displayed beforehand, and the buyers inspect them and mark on their catalogues the lots they want and the approximate price they intend to' bid. The sale is held in the Beaver Hall, Little Trinity Street, the premises of the Hudson Bay Company. When we think of furs, we instantly recall the part played by the Hudson Bay Company in this great enterprise. This London fur sale means a matter of £12,000,000, a vast transaction. If you attend a fur sale, you will be wise to stand very still, for any gesture, a flick of the hand, a mere twist of the head, may be taken for a bid and land you with a parcel of silver fox or squirrel worth £1000. Buyers from all the world are here, keenly competing for the pick of the pelts, and so shy, so elusive is the bidding that a whole army of "spotters" assist the auctioneer in watching this international contest, which expresses its offer in a movement so slight that only an expert eye can detect it.

The fur sale is held in the spring, but there is so much to be done afterwards, the curing of the skin, the preparing of the fur, the cutting and manufacture of the coats, etc., that it will take six months before the goods are ready for the shops in the autumn and winter. Fashionable Silver Fox. Fur prices have come down and there has been the usual variation in fashions, that has discarded some in favour of others. Silver fox was once a most expensive fur, but the demands of fashion has brought into being the fox farm and so increased the supply. At this year's sale 32 different varieties of fur were offered. The silver fox is still one of the most fashionable furs for midseason wear, but the most numerous skins were squirrel; there were half a million of these. The most rare is the sea otter, and only two skins were for sale. Each country has its taste in furs. In Paris you find them wearing the fisher, a skin seldom seen in England. The. fisher is a marten, and the finest fur-bearing animal of that clan and resembles the European fitch. English women favour the silver fox, but Americans prefer the muskrat. The only fur that has not been affected by the war is the chinchilla, and these pelts are no larger than your two hands, but they cost £25 apiece, and it takes about 80 pelts to make a fur coat. As there are not many women buying £2000 coats these days, there is less demand. The beaver is a .moderate-priced fur, with the exception of the black beaver, but as there are probably only 50 black beavers in a lot of 20,000, the price is always high. The London fur trade goes back to 1317, when the Skinner's Company received its charter, so the Furrier's Guild is really one of the oldest. In fact, the wearing of animal skins was the fashion among our ancestors long before they had learnt to weave. This year, on the first day of the sale, a quarter of a million pelts were sold, and the resource and ingenuity of modern manufacturers has so increased the demand among all classes that the fur trade is set on a solid footing. While winter remains winter, though prices may fluctuate, the wearing of furs—the owning of furs— will remain a high objective among women of all lands.