FURS: Trouble in Mink

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As he does every year about this time, bronzed, husky Herbert A. Nieman was grading pelts on his silver fox farm near Hermansville, Mich. But this year pelting was different. Nieman, the biggest U.S. breeder of silver foxes, was almost ready to pelt out of the fox-breeding business for the next few years. Last spring he killed off 15,000 pups; this-season his kill (by electrocution) will be 30,000 more foxes. He will keep a small breeding stock of only 1,250 pairs for next year.

The reason for this year's big kill was a spectacular drop in the price of fox furs. Pelts that brought as much as $32 apiece before the war were selling this fall for as little as $12. Nieman, who figures it costs him about $30 to raise a fox to maturity, stood to lose $18 on each pelt he sold this year.

Many other fox breeders, including his brother-in-law, had switched their farms to mink, but Nieman did not think the shift worthwhile. Though mink are cheaper to raise (their feed costs from $10 to $14 a year), Herb Nieman thinks that mink will soon be overproduced, too. And mink raisers, who were getting as little as $11 a pelt (as against $20 last year), were wondering whether they will meet costs.

The -slump is not only in high-priced furs. In the Louisiana bayou country, where trappers sold $11 million worth of muskrat, raccoon, opossum and other cheap furs last year, there were few buyers as the 1948 trapping season opened. Fur dealers were still loaded up with last year's skins.

The gloom deepened as the fur auction season started last week in Manhattan. Even in the rarer types (e.g., Silverblumink) only half the pelts offered were sold; in the top quality dark ranch mink, prices were off 30 to 50% from last year.

The breeders' woes were echoed by fur retailers. In a season when fur sales should be booming, business was so slow that retail prices were being cut as much as 50%. One big reason for buyer resistance was the 20% federal tax.

Furriers were digging foxholes for a long bout with the buyers' strike. Manhattan's I. J. Fox, Inc., biggest U.S. fur retailer, canceled plans for four new New York City stores, decided instead to lease fur departments in smaller department stores all over the U.S. By plugging lower-priced furs, the company—like other furriers—hoped to make up in mass sales for the slump in its luxury coats.