158 THE BEAVER 
While of course many other furs were taken the beaver 
was of such prime importance that everything, both other 
kinds of furs and articles of merchandise, was valued in 
terms of beaver skins. Beaver tokens were issued by the 
fur companies for use in trading. Beaver skins in the early 
days of the trade began to be sold by the pound, and the cus- 
tom survived to a comparatively few years ago. The 
average weight of a beaver skin is 15 to 12 pounds (Cas- 
torologia). 
From 1853 to 1877, inclusive, the Hudson’s Bay Company 
sold 2,965,389 beaver skins in London, the average being 
118,615 skins annually. The maximum, 172,042, was in 
1867, probably the most productive year of the company. 
The numbers fell off, and in 1897 the company sales were 
about 50,000, in 1900 about 43,000, 46,000 in 1902, and 
49,190 for 1903. The above figures are from MacFarlane. 
Seton says that in the last quarter of the eighteenth cen- 
tury about 150,000 skins were exported annually by 
American fur companies, and the Hudson’s Bay Company 
marketed about 50,000 yearly. 
In 1891 the American output was reduced to 11,693, 
and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s was 57,260, while in 
1887 it had exported 102,745, and in 1871, 171,461 skins. 
In 1905 the Hudson’s Bay Company’s returns were 54,119. 
Dugmore says that in 1859 there were 509,000 sold in 
London and Edinburgh. 
At the London fur sales in March, 1906, prices were $7.20 
to $8.40 for first-class skins, grading down to $3.60. Forty- 
one first-class black skins brought $14.88 each. Since that 
date prices have greatly advanced. 
Thanks to the kindness of David C. Mills, general director 
of the National Association of the Fur Industry, I have 
very complete data of the sales of beaver skins of the New 
York Fur Sales Corporation for the five years 1919-19238, 
