Update: NAFA Fresh Quantities May Sale

[thebeav2]

Fair ? What's not fair, a dealer has In most cases invested a lot of money In buying that fur so he needs to look at his expenditures and place a price on his Investment. That seem s fair to me. Most If not all of your smaller country buyers most likely operate this way or they are selling weekly to other large buyers and trying to keep up a cash flow so they can keep buying next week. They might be selling for .50 cents or a dollar more then they paid for that piece of fur. Or they might be consigning that fur to NAFA and getting a cash advance. But what ever they do they need a cash flow so they can keep buying.

When you ship to auction or sell In the country you go into the deal with your eyes wide open so It's fair In my opinion.

[thorsmightyhammer]

The fair left town in august....

Whether we like it or not that is just how the world works.

Groenwold advertises if a trapper has enough of one item he'll price protect them if its reasonable.

A trapper has the ability as well to a degree. If the market tanks dont send them. It rarely happens overnight.

Randy there are 1.6 or so BILLION people in China who never used to have access to the fur market to any degree.

If and when China has a true middle class, if I was an animal that swam, flew or screwed I'd be nervous as heck.

Fur is actually coming back into vogue. Maybe not coats but you see a tremendous amount of trim out there.

[trappincoyotes39]

China a true niddle class??? LOL. I don't think in our lifetime, that Govt will stymie any thought of such. Give them just "enough" and no more.

I know the trim trade is what has kept fur worth anything for some time, but that is alot of trim for sure! I can't remember the last time I saw true fur trimmed stuff in a store, most synthetic crap.

Let's hope fur does come back in vougue like to see beaver worth what they should be and other furs. Time will tell what effect this all has on the rat market which has been the talk for the past few years.

[thebeav2]

And back to the fur storage thing.
Fur stored at auction house's are NOT Kept FROZEN. They are kept baled In a controlled atmosphere. The temperature Is around 38 degrees and humidity Is kept at a very low level. I'm told the storage unit at NAFA Is around 500,000 cubic feet.

At the NAFA facility In WI only green fur Is kept frozen. Once It Is finished It's baled and sent to a storage facility In Canada. But It's not re frozen.

[thorsmightyhammer]

Fur stored at auction house's are NOT Kept FROZEN.
IMHO thus the "stale" look.

And I am not alone in that. Big furbuyer out of Kansas told me he thought the same thing.

Randy, alot of things can happen in ones lifetime.

Our grandparents went from needing mules and horses to landing on the moon.

Beaver are high enough and I am afraid they will go higher.

Rat market for the year was pretty darn good too.

I've been hearing since 2010 that it isnt going ot have legs or there isnt real money backing it.

Funny I figured out my year average the other day(well except for the 69 I have at nafa) and my average will be higher than its ever been. And not by a little bit but somewhere in the 20 to 30 percent range.

We'll know more in a month but i have a pretty good feeling about it. I"ll say it again but its the best year since the crash by far.

[bblwi]

Those of you that don't think China has a middle class need to make sure they get their heads out of the sand so they don't get goosed by an ostrich!
China has about 3-400 million middle class citizens right now which is more than the total population of the USA and probably 100 million of our citizens are not middle class.
The lower income workers of China are on schedule to receive about a 21% increase in wages this coming year. They will probably spend 70% of that on food and other commodities. Not a bad time to be selling commodities with a weak dollar to a huge market.

Bryce

[robertw]

I'd chip in for a one way ticket for TC39 to go see the Chineese middle class.

[thebeav2]

Count me In RW LOL

[thorsmightyhammer]

Bryce, by "true" middle class, I mean up to our standards or near to it.

[blackhammer]

Just so they can have money at their disposal to buy furs I could care less how they compare to an American middle class that for the most part ignores fur.Just show me the money Chinaman.

[trappincoyotes39]

Robert I know you would but someone has to be around to keep your fert meter in check

Bryce if you think China's middle class is remotely close to what we have as such then believe so. It isn't just about the money and your statement sums it up good.

Have you seen there taxation rates over there on income? If you make 30,000 a year there govt is taking over 40% in taxes yeh great middle class tax rates!

Right now 1 USD = 6.3071 yen and there taxes are anything above 80,000 to 100,000 yuan you pay at a rate of 40%. Yeh great !!!!!

[John W]

China? Ok, agreed for right now. However, INDIA will be a bigger potential market (for fur and everything else), larger total economy, and have a larger population within our lifetime. Some estimates indicate this could happen (specifically the population) within the next 10-15 years. The one child only policy of 1979 greatly reduced China's rate of growth. Meanwhile India has the highest and fastest growth of Billionaires of any country. Even now India's population is less than 10% different from China. The traditional fur market countries of Europe are experiencing stagnant or negative population growth. From the outside looking in, I'd say the real future of the fur market is in 'new money' in developing and/or rapidly growing countries. China, India, Middle East (UAE, KSA, Qatar), and Nigeria. While the the common man in some of these countries doesn't have much purchasing power, the affluent certainly do and they are INTO conspicuous consumption. More is more when you are new to money. Don't think for a second that just because these countries don't have cold winters that they won't/don't buy fur. The fur target market people are these brown skinned jet setters who ski in Europe and spend a Dec weekend in NYC. Just my opion from the outside looking in.

[thorsmightyhammer]

I agree John.

India is a huge potential market as well.

Its kinda scary

[bblwi]

The problem with many posting here regarding China, India or South Korea is they want to measure these developing nations based on our income level. If you want to compare to the USA then compare to Norway, Germany, England, Kuwait, Netherlands etc. How much fur do they buy, about we do. One has to compare choices made with discretionary monies that is what decides who or how many are middle class or above. There are probably 1 billion people in Asia that have the same discretionary abilities that the USA has and they are choosing to increase their life styles with commodities such as food, fiber and fur and metals. These nations are working hard to create more middle class material goods spenders while we seem to be trying to find ways to lower the number of citizens and workers with discretionary spending ability. US citizens are similar to Japan right now, with high cost housing that they can not unload, expensive round trip commutes and lower valued retirement programs which all tie up declining revenues instead of increasing revenues. We travel led to some 5 star resorts in India that had eastern toilets and not western toilets. Just because a country does not have a "crapper" that we are used to does not mean they don't have wealth. Many Japanese fly to Honolulu to have their weddings as it is cheaper there than at home. Many of us think Honolulu is expensive. We see the same for the upper middle class from China and Korea going to Manila etc.

Bryce

[trappnman]

but I still am rather surprised that the "fairness" thing is supported by trappers here.

Small country buyers, according to what I read, aren't being priced protected. It sounds like the only ones that are, According to Ron, are BIG dealers, with big complete lots.

So what he has an investment to protect- hes screwing the local trapper anyways, according to many here- so doesn't he already HAVE a cushion built in?

And doesn't the trapper, have a speculative investment in his personal fur harvest as well as, or in many cases more so (risk investment) than the dealer has?

If Grade X of coon, is price protected at $30 for "big" dealers- then there is no reason on God's green earth, not to price protect ALL coon in Grade X at that $30.

now explain to me again how thats not the fair thing to do- and more apt, the right thing to do.

[mtcbrlatrap]

Life is neither fair nor equal it just is.
I don't know when and how the protected lots got started and what the limitations may be as to numbers etc. What has evolved over time is a system by which some customers can put protected prices on specific items. Buy backs by the auction house may be a way of showing what some of the protected lots are set at. Having protected lots if I were a buyer can also be a way for the buyer to sort of test the market to see what prices are. He can then decide to buy less, buy at lower prices etc. etc. Sort of like having a call option. Actually that is pretty nice service for a major buyer to have at an auction. Protection can also lower the total number of goods that sell and that can or may help establish a bit higher prices as well.

Bryce

[blackhammer]

It's just not practical to protect trappers fur with the trapper's own set limits.The auction sets there owm limits and if a trapper doesn't trust he will get what he needs.He has to just decide not to ship.One guy may be happy with a 14 dollar coon while another may decide he needs 17 to sell those coon.And how in the heck can you sort out a coon here and there from many different lots for a guy with 75 coon at the auction and make sure he gets proctected for what he perceives as the right price.Fair or not I have no problem with their system as it seems reasonable.It would be fun to know how big a collection one needs to get dealer protection.

[trappnman]

I agree on that blackhammer-

if would be impractical, to have different price limits sets for each piece of fur-

Are dealer protected lots, all different price levels? Or are they a set minimum for all?

I guess my point isn't that smaller guys should be price protected but rather that the bigger lots ARE.

And I'm back to WHY? Are they not going to ship if there aren't protected lots? I would guess those big dealers that have private treaty contracts, already are by-passing the auctions. I've seen no good reason, TO price protect any lots, beyond the minimum set BY the auction company. Every reason that a big dealer has FOR protected minimums, also applies to the average shipper.

If big dealers think their fur is worth X amount, then the average shipper most likely thinks the same- while I see your point that protected lots might raise prices on unprotected lots, the reality is that those unprotected furs are going to sell for less than protected ones.

as far as fair left town in August or life isn't fair- true and not it's not-

but does that mean the issue of why some lots are protected beyond the auctions minimum and the rest are not is off limits?

[mtcbrlatrap]

Well the first real question to ask is who most wants the protection Dealers or the auction house? Actually shipping a large quantity for fur and putting a price on it is not much different than hauling a lot of fur to a buyer and no sales on his best offer. I would also guess that the large buyer with the protection option has talked with the auction house on what would be reasonable prices to protect fur at. Not so much different than a buyer with a contract or firm price on certain goods at a certain price. That way they could see how close to their price the sale went. this would help determine for the buyer how aggressive or not so aggressive they may pursue additional fur or how fast they should put up what they have etc.
If a buyer ships say 10K of MN-WI coons. lets say he protects half of that. He may not want all of his fur sold in one sale. He can do that by not having it there or stating that he wanted it sold later but this way it gets graded, looked at and maybe sold PT. So me it adds options for a buyer, especially buyers who have enough fur to protect but maybe not large enough to direct sell to end users etc.
Bryce

[trappnman]

How far ahead could the auction houses be able to give firm quotes? I was under the impression the buyer set his minimum- or that the auction houses say " a minimum of X amount can be set"

I'd be curious Ron or any that know- how does the price lot protection work? how big a lot does it have to be? Are those lots made up b/shipping- or after they have been graded- then if a lot is big enough, it qualifies?