DROP IN PRICE FOR ANTLERS

Press, Volume CI, Issue 30007, 17 December 1962, Page 7

DROP IN PRICE FOR ANTLERS

Velvet Stages Now Scarcer (From Our Own Reporter) GREYMOUTH, December 16. The record price of £3 per pound weight paid for antlers in the velvet by a Greymouth firm has dropped to £2 a pound. One firm has ceased buying altogether, but other firms are still accepting antlers at lower prices. Although the actual reasons for the price reduction have not been made completely clear, there is some speculation that Chinese interests outside the province, fearing the impact on a trade which they have mainly operated in the past, have stepped in to restrict selling by Europeans. Another reason is that the deer now are starting to move out of the velvet stage and therefore the antlers are becoming harder and not as valuable as earlier in the season.

Those merchants still buying will now scale the prices of antlers in velvet according to value. The payment on antlers of good, desired quality up to 16 inches might be £2 per lb, as against the recent top price of £3 but hard antlers nearly out of velvet will fetch as little as 7s 6d per lb. While this will not result in very high payments, sellers can still make good money out of them. One firm has paid out £lOOO in three days this week.

Meet the first beginnings; look to the budding mischief before it has time to ripen to maturity.—Shakespeare.