WHAT WOMEN FUR BUYERS SHOULD KNOW 31 



It is quite obvious that any woman, who wears the rare furs — 

 mole, chinchilla, gray squirrel — for rough outdoors usage sim- 

 ply shows her own ignorance of furs. It is like the shipyard worker 

 in war-wage days, who ordered an #1 100 Circassian cased baby grand 

 piano placed in his wife's kitchen in a tenement so she could try out 

 tunes while frying sausages. 



The first question is — what is the fur wanted for ? And that 

 brings up the question of durability. Furs are sorted, stand- 

 ardized and classified in grades just as finely for durability as lumber 

 is in building, or wheat is graded for flour; and when a woman is 

 paying from #200 up to #1000 for a fur garment, she should know 

 these standards and grades just as carefully as a man knows his job 

 when he buys lumber or grain. 



Before going into the durability of furs, you must understand 

 exactly what fur is. There are three parts to all fur. 



There is the skin, the same as a man's skin, next to the flesh. 



Then, there is the pelage, thick as wool on some animals like the 

 Persian lambs, or beaver, or nutria, or otter, or seals, or muskrats, 

 or rabbits. 



Then there are the rough long upper hairs, whiskers you can call 

 them if you like, which are always plucked from the seals and beavers 

 and nutrias, which are cut down even on the muskrats and otters, 

 and are never cut but are regarded as the chief beauty of the foxes 

 and fishers and sables and martens and skunks. 



Now get these next points clear ! 



There is only one way to tell a dyed from an undyed fur, an imi- 

 tation from a true fur — only one way, which will not fool a fur 

 trader wise as a wolf, himself ; and that is the color of the under skin. 

 The natural color of the under skin is flesh white, not golden, nor 

 yellow. Every other test will defy the finest detection. Cases are 

 on record where men forty years in the business were fooled when 

 offered the present of a coat for their wives if they could tell the 

 difference between Alaska seal, which has to be dyed, and Hudson 

 seal, or muskrat, which also has to be dyed. Here the infallible 



