32 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



test was lacking, because both skins showed up golden ; and the 

 white test failed, and the fur dresser chose a $300 muskrat coat for 

 his wife, when he might have had a $2000 Alaska seal. 



Now granted a woman buyer knows the difference between a 

 dyed skin and an undyed skin. That won't help her as between the 

 Alaska seal and the Hudson seal, in the case of Persian lamb, which 

 is born jet black in pelage but has to be given a brush coat of black 

 for lustre. Well-dyed skins will never suffer from the dye ; but skins 

 beautifully dyed may have too much acid in the dye, which will in 

 the course of five or six years eat through the pelage of fur into the 

 hide and weaken it. How is a buyer to know a well-dyed skin from 

 a poorly-dyed skin, granted both have equally fine lustre ? This is 

 an important question when you are buying a coat valued at from 

 #1000 to $12,000. If you bought a horse of that value, you would 

 have a connoisseur look him over. The dealer's test is this. Gently 

 stretch the dyed skin. If it stretches soft as the skin on the back 

 of your hand, it is well dyed. If it cracks, or emits a little feel like 

 a seam about to rip, look out ! It has been fleshed thin, or hard- 

 ened in the dyeing and will rip. Just now it is reenforced by rubber, 

 or padding, or false skin ; but some day when you are in a hurry and 

 jerk your arm, there will be a rip and seam will show ; and it will 

 not be the fault of your tailor. It will be away back in the curing and 

 dyeing of the skin. 



As to durability, it hardly needs to be told that an undyed 

 skin will always be more durable than a dyed skin, and the skin of a 

 strong tough animal like bear, or wolf, or fisher, or otter, or buffalo, 

 more durable than a fragile animal like fox, or muskrat, or mole, 

 or squirrel, or chinchilla. 



Next to skin in durability, consider the pelage, or thick fur 

 proper. Fur that has glossy lustre and is really a fur as distinct 

 from wool is more durable than fur that has the feel of wool or down ; 

 so you get otter and skunk and fisher and wolf and coon and bear as 

 more durable than either Alaska or Hudson seal, or beaver or nutria, 

 or fox, or sable, or mink, or marten. The lustre furs do not mat and 



