Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 12/02) - The last fur auction of the year was held June 28 in Vancouver, yielding high fur prices for everything except beaver.

Angelo Pappas, fur grader with Western Canadian Fur Auctions said the demand is holding and Beaufort Delta fur is still among the best in the world.

"The market is holding pretty good, considering that it's late spring, early summer now," Pappas said.

"We get a lot of muskrats from the Inuvik area and they sold very well this year," he said. "They sold for $3.25 U.S. for the really clean ones."

As the fur size and quality drops, so go the prices. The auction fetched $2.50 for dry, but fairly good rats, $1.25 for slightly damaged pelts and .75 for the poor quality pelts.

"The good prices came from coloured foxes, but there was not too many to speak of in this auction," he said.

Beavers took a hit this year, with buyers favouring farm-raised mink over the heavy beaver furs.

"Last year, they were selling for about $65 to $70 for the cleaner blankets and this year, they are selling for about $45 to $50," he said. "They use beavers for shearing and now they are shearing ranch mink and they are much lighter weight and cheaper to produce."

"It looks like very light-weight velvet and does not have the trouble of shearing and dressing that you have with beaver."

Wolverine started strong this year, fetching $200 to $350 for extra-large pelts, but interest waned at the last auction.

"It's a bit lower this year than last, because it's an article that only the United States buys and a few are sold in Germany," he said.

Polar bears are not selling well he said. With a ban on Nanook in the U.S., the only markets are domestic, Germany and Japan.

"The really big ones and very heavy, clean ones are selling about $100 U.S. per foot," he said. "The Japanese market is out; there is no money there."

"We sold about 50, but we still have about 170 or 180 unsold."

He said they did get a surprise this year with their first order to Russia.

"We have a shipment going to Russia today," he said.

Overall, Pappas said the fur market looks good for next season.

"The market looks very good for the next season for fine furs," he said. "Inuvik and that area has nice furs; like lynx, coloured foxes, marten -- it's all very good, but there is no market for wild mink."

"Next year is going to be a very, very good season."

Pappas said the European fashion industry is devouring marten pelts as fast as they can get them in for the "trimming trade."

"If we had a few thousand extra large or double extra large marten, we could sell them right now," he said.

The next fur auction will be held in February.