FUR FACTS 39 



brush should be full and of the same rich black color as the mane, 

 with a white tip on the point of the tail. The skins that bring the 

 highest prices are full-furred, with the guard fur intact, (no rubbed 

 or damaged spots), with the long hair standing straight up and full 

 of life. Skins that are a shade off, that is skins that are called "rusty'* 

 are not so valuable. They may come from the same section, but 

 when the animal wanders around in the sun the fur is liable to lose 

 its gloss and its rich black color. Some silver foxes are gray in 

 color all over and these skins are also very popular and high priced. 

 Silver foxes range in price up to one thousand dollars per skin, and 

 even more for exceptional specimens. The average price in the Retail 

 store for good skins is about five hundred dollars. Some manu- 

 facturers have attempted to imitate silver fox and sell what is 

 known as "pointed fox"; but American women do not care much 

 for imitations, and the "pointed fox" has about played out. How- 

 ever, it is rather interesting to know how the silver fox is imitated. 

 This is done by taking the ordinary red fox and dyeing it black, 

 and then using the white badger hairs, taking a single hair at a time, 

 dipping one end of it in glue and then inserting it among the hairs 

 of the dyed fox. Enough of the badger hair is added to the dyed 

 fox to give it the appearance of silver fox, in that it is sprinkled 

 with white hairs. But this imitation is readily perceived, except by 

 the most inexperienced women shoppers, and no reliable retailer 

 would attempt to sell "pointed fox" as genuine silver fox. They 

 are very attractive, but it shows plainly that it is the imitated and 

 not the genuine article. 



Strange it may seem, many people believe that "taupe foxes", 

 "platinum foxes", "sitka foxes", etc., are natural colored skins. 

 As a matter of fact there are only seven kind of foxes: silver fox, 

 which has been described heretofore, the red fox, which is a bright 

 lemon colored red, the white fox, which is snow white, the gray 

 fox, which as the name indicates, is gray in color, the tip of the hair 

 being white and the lower part of a bluish cast, the swift fox, which 

 is very similar in color to the gray, the blue fox which has a brown- 

 ish cast, and the cross fox, which is a reddish brown in color with 

 a distinct and darker cross down the top of the back and across the 

 shoulders. All other foxes such as "sitka fox", "isabella fox", 

 "taupe fox", "platinum fox", etc., are dyed, the red fox and white 

 fox being used for this purpose. 



A splendid rule in judging fox fur as to whether it is dyed or not 

 is to look at the pelt. If the fur has not been dyed the pelt will be 



