Pale Beaver

[Marty S]

I got a phone call here a few weeks ago, some USA feller that likes to build things from fur phoned me up looking for pale beaver. He wants pale beaver and he wants lots of them, lots as in really lots, like stupid lots, yes.

So he wants me to buy him beaver, major amounts of pale, X-pale beaver, and th n on top of wanting lots of pales, he also wants high quality. So obviously winter prime, I doubt falls, but you never know. And then of course the beautiful short window stunning spring X-heavy beaver.

The guy was def not born yesterday, has been everywhere buying his beaver, but in modern times he is having extreme difficulty in purchasing properly sectioned goods, meaning when he buys pales, he gets them from everywhere. He is very interested in buying Alberta Saskatchewan Montana pale westerns, but does not want to buy Arkansas beaver nor beavers from other such horrible places. You cannot simply buy goods in a sale, and handpick and dump the unwanted, you have to buy them all, pay commission on thm all, take delivery on th m all thus shipping costs on unwanted, then pay packing/handling on them all, gets freakishly expensive in a hurry.

He really wants good pale beaver, makes beautiful stuff, high end stuff, is the real thing, however if he cannot buy what he n eds without buying 1/4 of th continents beaver, he is going to drop beaver from his line.

Solutions???

I told him maybe I could round up a bunch of beaver folks and send them all his way, but he kinda wants to deal with some sort of a collector, that (his words) "...has a littl skin in the game..."

Side question: how far north do the pale beaver exist in numbers? Certainly Milk/Bow/Oldman/Red Deer Rivers. How about the Battle? North Saskatchewan? Athabasca?

I guess I could have just text d some buddies and asked, but in th nspirit of the big grey ones post, I hereby petition thee!

[The Spruce]

Marty,

Pales are just a colony thing. I catch them everywhere. Most common are obviously the reddish, or brownish standard westerns. I get into a few colonies or pale or extra pales every year. Just pulled a couple LM’s off the board that are pales. They typically sell well at auction also. I would say they are found everywhere in the west right up into Alaska. PM me, and we can talk about details.

[pikeman06]

Did somebody say beaver??? What's this guy willing to pay. I got a freezer full of sweet beavers honestly only 5 to 10 what I would call pale. Gorgeous fur. Late fall ice trapped, can get more if it's even remotely worth the while. Sure ain't gonna give them up to make some stranger rich. I'm in the battle area and it's very random for real western pales. More in the ponoka area than any where I have found. But catch two beaver and one is pale and one red in the same family. I love the pale beavers especially the smsll ones with no scars.

[Marty S]

This guy that's looking for them was buying out of one specific area known for its pales, his source (buyer) retired and he seeks a new source. It'd be nice to see a user continue using wild fur, especially a western staple. Or a would be Western staple.

He will pay. He's a high end guy. I know that he buys some coyotes too and pays $150 USD for the very best, likely getting all he needs domestically.

So I always figured pales were Western wide, but wasn't sure, never trapped them elsewhere.

[TrapperMike]

Send picture of what he considers as pale.

[KegRiver]

The last I dealt with NAFA formerly Dominion Sudac, they put pelts in lots according to grade and color. In other words, they did not sell pale hides with dark or red hides.

Maybe that has changed, but I would bet that if a furrier offer to pay a premium for color selected top grade hides, the auction house, any auction house, would be glad to comply if it were a serious offer from a high numbers buyer.

Bottom line, I think there is something fishy about his story.

Pale hides have always brought higher prices, in any of the top grades. He may be trying to do an end run around the auction house to get his pelts at a lower price.

It's a game I've encountered in the past, and in my experience, I have never known it to net the tapper better prices.