CHAPTER V 



HINTS ON HOW TO JUDGE FURS 



The wearing of fur garments dates back to the time of Adam and 

 Eve. We read in the Book of Genesis Chapter Three, Verse Twenty- 

 One, "And the Lord made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, 

 and clothed them." 



The American woman is the best judge of values in the world. 

 She knows silks, linens, cotton goods, shoes, stockings, hats and furs. 

 She instinctively knows quality, and the enterprising wide-awake 

 retail merchant has come to a realization of this fact, and con- 

 sequently the reliable retailer does not try to pass skunk as black 

 marten, or muskrat as river mink. As a matter of fact the leading 

 retail furriers take pride in calling furs by their right names and there 

 is hardly a woman shopper in any of the big cities today but knows 

 a genuine silver fox when she sees it, and that can judge fine mink 

 almost as well as the furrier himself. She knows that fine muskrat 

 sheared will take the dye and make as fine a coat as Alaska seal, 

 with the advantage that the muskrat is lighter in weight and lends 

 itself to nearly any style of garment and on this account she does 

 not hesitate to pay almost as much for a fine muskrat coat dyed seal 

 color as she does for dyed Alaska seal. 



Some furs are made up into garments in their natural color, others 

 are dyed, and some are merely blended, that is the top hairs are 

 tinted by barely touching the hair with a feather dipped in dye; 

 other furs are plucked and still others are both plucked and dyed. 



Plucking 



Beaver is one of the staple articles of the fur trade and thousands 

 of them are used every year for trimming, but very few if any are 

 ever used dyed, the furrier using the beaver fur in the natural color. 

 Beaver is used to trim coats, capes, etc., and has a soft, thick, dense 

 fur, as smooth as velvet with a light brownish cast which shades 

 off from the light into the dark, the plucked skin being darker along 

 the back of the animal than it is on the sides. But the change in 

 shade is very gradual, so that any way it is looked at it is a beautiful 

 rich soft color and one of the best wearing and most dependable furs 



