By Herman Jansen, Managing Director, North American Fur Auctions

April 2, 2015

For those of you that shipped coyote, sable and female fisher to NAFA for our March sale, your results should bring smiles.  For those of you that shipped us raccoon and beaver, your patience is wearing thin, and this is understandable. Nevertheless, supporters of NAFA and the WFSC should be proud that all of our past and collective wild fur promotion efforts have helped maintain and grow the market for sable, fisher and coyote.

Five years ago, very few people in China knew the word fisher.  This week in our sale, it was China that bought nearly all of the female fisher.  The results were uneven because the Chinese buyers were not as interested in purchasing the males, which we partially withdrew.  The point is, however, that without proper wild fur promotion, we would never have sold the Chinese manufacturers and retailers fisher, sable and other wild fur articles.

Raccoon is a more difficult article for our Chinese customers.  It is too bulky and the skin too heavy to make jackets for the smaller Chinese ladies.  A few years ago, we were selling strips that were put on ladies boots, but that fashion trend has ended.  We need a new major raccoon campaign.  NAFA’s promotion department has been successful in getting a number of the Italian fashion houses to buy sample quantities in our sale, which resulted in comparatively high prices in some selected qualities and colours.  As with the coyotes, once we have the leading international fashion industry supporting and buying this article, young people around the world will follow a new fashion trend.  Many potential customers in North America and Europe still look at raccoon as a non-desirable fur item.  In North America, this is partly due to the raccoon’s urban habitat.

For the remainder of this selling season, we see the market potential of the fashion industry, the trim trade and Russia coming back later in the year. This should allow us to sell larger quantities of raccoon at the price levels that we established in our March sale. It is too early to change the price integrity  – we will need to be patient.

The Russian ruble has stabilized over the last 3 to 4 weeks at around 57 rubles to the U.S. dollar.  Hopefully, Mr. Putin will find it in Russia’s best interests to stay away from further Russian aggression and look after the Russian economy.

Overall, the fur market, which is 85% ranched mink, has done well because of the incredible Chinese demand for mink. NAFA will continue to look at every possible way to expand the wild fur market worldwide. In the meantime, as I have already said, we will all need to be patient with an article like raccoon because just dropping the price will not benefit our producers right now. It is the job of your auction company to maximize your return and we take this responsibility very seriously.