THE FUR TRADE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 141001, 20 April 1920, Page 3

THE FUR TRADE.

UNTOLD SECRETS. The wild eat coat may be the most fashionable article in the suburban, woman’s wardrobe next winter. The tame eat coat is likely to be a second favourite (remarks the London “Daily Chronicle”). Among the furs to be offered by ’the fur "brokers at the sales are some thousands of wild and tame eats. “What are eat skins used for?” a representative of the ‘Daily Chronicle’ asked an official of the Hudson Bay Company. “Well,” he laughed, “if I told you I suppose I should be revealing one of the. secrets of the fu,r trade. But I leave it to you to guess that they are largely made up into women's coats and that the convenient word “coney” covers a multitude of cats and rats and rabbits.

“Probably tbe rarest fur which' we are putting on the market is the sea otter. It is found off Eastern Siberia, and should fetch -from £l5O to £—oo for a single skin. It is too heavy to be made up into coats; but is used for cuffs and collars.” “We have found no difficulty in getting furs, and we are offering musquash otter, squirrel, foxes, wolves, wolverines, seals, bears, beaver.” There will be no drop in prices. The demand for furs in enormous, and dealers from all over the world will flock to the sale rooms.

In the list of furs to be offered for sale by one firm are 2,000 wild eats, 12,000 house cats, 10,000 rabbits, 52 leopards, 5,700 badgers, and 200,000 moles.

An export in the trade talked reminiscently of the "good old days/’ when the skin- of a musquash rat could be bought for a few pence. "There will.be no cheap fur coats for women next winter," he declared. "How can there be? Imagine paving 16s for. a musquash skin! Very nice fur in its way, but, after all, the musquash is only a rat. Before the war you could buy a musquash coat for five guineas. To-day a coat of similar quality costs 40 guineas. "Bare skins, like silver fox nud chinchilla .and sable, will fetch big sums. Beaver and kolinsky and fitch and souirrel and wolf will be in demand. too." After the furs have been disposed of by the brokers they are dressed and cleaned by skin merchants, who in turn hand them over to the manufacturers for making up during the long spring and summer months, into, garments which will bo sold next winter.