My dad was regaling us with tales of his misspent youth last night and told us about his profitable trapping business while in grade school. He grew up in northern Minnesota during the Depression, and besides running his own traplines he’d pay his classmates twenty-five cents each for any weasels they caught. He’d skin the weasels, stretch and dry the skins and mail them to Sears & Roebuck(!) in St. Louis(!) where they would grade the skins and mail him his payment. He says he’d get about a dollar and a quarter apiece. Good money for those times, especially for a poor schoolboy.
After answering our questions about him carrying dead weasels in his pockets at school (“Didn’t they have hot lunch?”) he told us about trapping skunks with his cousin Willard. (Besides weasels and skunks he also trapped mink and muskrats.) The point of his story was about how Willard got sprayed in the eye by a skunk and immediately lost interest in the skunk business, but I was surprised that skunk furs had any value. In fact, he said, skunks were much more profitable than weasels, and once he got four dollars for a skunk pelt. Which brings me to my question (finally): What do (or did) furriers do with skunk fur?
I know the fur business is something of a pariah these days, but in the recent past a fur coat was something of a status symbol. Mink coats were notable symbols of conspicuous wealth. But skunk? The thought of a skunk coat puts me in mind of the Beverly Hillbillies. We asked about the odor but he said the skunks (and their pelts) didn’t smell at all unless they sprayed, which didn’t usually happen (but see the previous mention of Cousin Willard).
I though maybe they used the skunk fur and called it a different name. Or maybe they dyed it to look like something else. But my dad said the most valuable pelts (including his four dollar one) were nearly all black – the more white, the less it was worth – which makes dyeing unlikely. (Weasels, on the other hand, were only valuable if they were white. The biggest weasel he ever trapped was only worth two cents to Sears because it was mottled brown and white.)
He didn’t have any other info, not knowing much about the fur business once the pelts were sold. Certainly his family was in no position to contemplate buying fur coats. But someone was buying those skunk furs. Who?
I remember reading a reference to a “skunk dyed sable” coat once. My guess is that the fur (which looks quite fluffy and luxurious on the skunk) could be dyed to look like more expensive furs. I could also imagine a coat or collar with that dashing black and white look, but I haven’t actually seen one.
A cursory search doesn’t turn up what in the heck they called it, however. I’m sure somebody can find it. It apparently is still used for trimming.
I DO remember guys trapping muskrats when I was a kid. Hard work - you had to get up early and go run your trapline before school in the morning. In those days, PA still payed a rather large bounty on foxes, too.
Actually, I’ve long wanted to know whether the fur called “fitch” is really skunk fur. These coats are still big sellers in Chicago. Anyway, the dictionary definition of fitch is polecat, and the dictionary definition of polecat if ferret or skunk. The fur has skunk-like markings, but the stripes are light brown (dyed?) instead of white. Is this one of those romanticized names yabob is talking about which they are still getting away with because the definition is there for anyone who looks it up?
It occurs to me, yabob, that the name for skunk fur was probably a closely guarded secret. It wouldn’t do to tell everyone your new fur coat was made from “Siberian Polecat” when they all knew that meant it was just skunk.
So the hunt is on!! What was the marketing name for skunk fur?
On preview, I see Humble Servant has a reasonable guess – can anyone confirm this?
http://www.hideandfur.com and a couple of other fur sites list fitch as a separate category from skunk. Apparently the fitch is a European critter also known as a polecat, while polecat is a biologically incorrect colloquialism for an American skunk. There are similarities – both are closely related to the weasel family and both have odoriferous capabilities.
One fur company mentioned the zorina, or South American skunk. I wonder if that’s a clue.
When I was young, I ran a trap line in the high country of Colorado, and one of the furs I used to sell was skunk.
The company who bounght them, out of Chicago, occasionally called it fitch fur. I was told, when I asked why they wanted skunk fur, that a good portion of fur coats of the time were made from skunk and dyed to the needed hue and sold to augment mink, sable and others.
By the way, I have never heard of anything but a skunk being called a polecat. According to some things I’ve read the phrase “More than one way to skin a cat,” originally was “More than one way to skin a polecat.”
And as for being Beverly Hillbillyesque, it did pay for a good portion of my first years at college.
And, as per biblio’s example, there is still SOME market for it simply sold as “skunk”. Several sources suggest that post WWI into the thirties when skunk fur was more highly prized, it was farmed:
It seems fairly consistent that they wanted as much black on them as possible, in keeping with the OP’s story that more black meant a higher valued pelt.
according to Trappnman over at Hunt Chat.com Skunk was sold as American Sable.
“…back 60 or so years ago, skunk was marketed as American Sable. This created a very good market for skunks- they were sought after pelts, in fact traps were made just for skunk trapping. The skunk market collapased with the Truth in Advertising Laws- apparently nobody did want to wear a coat label skunk!!!”
You probably see them as real fur collars today.
It really is a nice fur. The local skunks have two stripes. Not as valuable as the single striped ones.
I’ve read that during the depression skunk trapping was a good way to make money. Afterward school boys took up the challenge.
They aren’t particularly difficult to trap. They feed on the same things as fox, as a matter of fact a lot of trappers make their sets to look like a skunk did it.
Final note - “American Sable” is not a made-up concoction by the fur industry, but another name for the marten (Martes Americana), and would obviously run afoul of truth in advertising laws, as well as providing some consistency among our references:
Unlike many other members of the weasel family, it does not have a winter phase, and retains dark fur the year around. Sometimes also called the “pine marten”. Curiously enough, it seems to be brown, rather than black. I would guess that if your grandmother owned an “American Sable” coat that was made of nice silky black fur, you might reassess what critter it really came from.
