Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 599: The Fur King

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Ep. 599: The Fur King · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast, you can't
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: predict anything.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: for el, First Light has performance apparel to support every
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: dot com. F I R S T l I t
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: E dot com. Join today by a man who's understood
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: to be named Guy Groenwald, but who is actually Guy Grownawald.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: I guess so something like that.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: That's how your folks would have said it. Yea, that's
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: how they would have said, where do you hail from?
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Uh, we're from northern Germany. So my family is right
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: by how in a place called Friesland.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: And tell me how how how they would have sai
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: your last name Grumbld. They got americanized, They got americanized.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: You guys are in the Midwest now we're in.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, about one hundred miles from Chicago.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you are a your family been long involved
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: in the fur business, a little over one hundred years.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yep, man, So.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: You guys picked right up whe Hudson Bay Company left off.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Well, really, Hudson Bay didn't leave off till three years ago.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: But really, yeah, you have to explain that. Yeah, sure,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: did you know that, Randall? I can't say that I did,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: stumped Old Randall.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, the oldest corporation.
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  Speaker 2: Hudson Bay Company, was around in some fashion until three
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: years ago.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, they all happened.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: Three years ago.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: NAFA went out of business.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I thought something, dude, Biden, No, go on, you know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: it's in the spirit of blame and everything, right.
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: Right, timeline sixteen seventy to one, like three hundred and
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: fifty years Yeah, is that right?
• 1:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they're still dealing with fur Oh that one is
• 2:00
  Speaker 6: that one?
• 2:01
  Speaker 7: Uh?
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: NAFA went out of business North American for auctions. Yeah,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: but they were the there. Originally they were the arm
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: of Hudson's Bay Company and like twenty some years ago
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: and I'm sure I'm wrong, but they they broke off
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: and it separated, uh, the two companies, so that's still
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: you know, they held their auctions at the Hudson's Bay
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Company where it was in Toronto and oh way, yeah,
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  Speaker 3: they only ceased having auctions in New York during I
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: think during the Sars outbreak. That's when they stopped having
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: auctions there. So like two thousand, I don't know when
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: when was the First Stars two thousand and eight or
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: something like that, maybe they stopped in New York. So, Yeah,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Hutson's Bay was around and really in some form until
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: just a few years ago.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 2:46
  Speaker 8: But isn't it still around just as like a department store.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the Yeah, it's still a department store in Canada. Yeah.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, owned by the actual people, like owned.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: By the actual No, it was not owned by the
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: well it was no longer no longer had they actually
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: owned it and stopped using the name at one point.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: And then that company that they owned and didn't it
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: was called North American fur Auctions, became owned by other people.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: It was bought by the ranchers, uh, the Mink ranchers
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: and the Fox ranchers of Canada and the United States,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: and then it became you know, owned by the uh
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: a few people that ran the company there. They bought
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: it and uh yeah, three years ago it went bankrupt
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: and uh, you know a lot of a lot of
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: trappers lost money in it when they had skins up there. Sure,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: when it actually went out of business. So, yeah, we
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: bought a lot of the skins out of it when
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: they went bankrupt. No, I'm not. We bought a lot. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: one of the biggest deals they ever did. Yeah, I
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: was buying up the residue from Hudson Bay fers. I
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: remember where I was, exact place where I did it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: I was Indu Buku Iowa, going to a wedding with
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: my wife on a Saturday afternoon at five o'clock. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I remember when they We worked on the deal for
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: a long time time, and you know, they had asked
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: we were a you know, what was the date. I
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: don't know what the date was, but it was that
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: first it was, uh would be about July of twenty twenty.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: I thought maybe it was when Seth was getting married.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I was going to ask you if your person's officiated
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  Speaker 2: a good job, because I tore it up right here.
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  Speaker 8: You who else was buying their furs that day when
• 4:25
  Speaker 8: we were going out of business.
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  Speaker 2: Nobody just you That's why.
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  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, they they had contacted everybody in the
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: fur trade and it was you know, it was during
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: COVID and it was bad and uh, you know, nobody
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: was buying.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: And so, uh, do you had a good deal?
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: I did, all right.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Was your wife annoyed that you were doing that
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: at the shodding?
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she was probably a little annoyed. Yeah, yeah, but
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  Speaker 3: I did you know, she was happy afterwards after, you know,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: she got to enjoy the fruits of the spruits of it.
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: So said, Hudson's Bay Company doesn't go under very enough. No,
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  Speaker 5: it's a pretty rare People have been waiting on hundreds
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: of yes, oportunity.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: This is a once in a millennium opportunity. Sweet heart,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: let me know all the wedding goes.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: But it was a huge deal in the fur business
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: when they went under, you know, they were they were
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: in the ranch making business as well, so you know,
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: it affected the entire trade. And I was I was
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: actually in China when I was with someone and that
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: was financing him, and I overheard a conversation where they
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: had they were gonna they had lent some money privately
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: to him, and I heard him say it, and he
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: probably regretted it that he said it in English, you know,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: And so I was very aware that they were having
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: financial difficulties. And then you know, it became apparent a
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: couple months later to the trade. But I knew it.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: I knew it before anybody else when we got to
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: cover some stuff.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: And when we come back, I had in my head
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: where we were going to start our conversation. But now
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: you got me thinking about we're going to you know,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: we should start our conversation when.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: We come back.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Can you can you be prepared to talk about what
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: happened with the COVID pandemic and ranchment?
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Sure I can. I can tell that story. Sure, that'd
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: be great.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, since here, howdy, how are you liking that little scarf?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It's warm. It's not as nice as my wife's new
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: sea otter scarf.
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: No, that thing is pretty sweet. But this thing's pretty
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: sweet too.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Doctor Randall's here, uh Krinn And then Brent Reeves always
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: from Arkansas prison, and uh Spencer Newhart's here. We're gonna
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: be Oh so is media radio live live?
• 6:33
  Speaker 9: Yes?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Okay? Two different media media to radio live on the
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Mediator podcast network. It's out on YouTube. What's the media
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: cross red puzzle? Oh? I know about that, but that's
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: already out. That's out too.
• 6:49
  Speaker 8: Both of these things have been out for a month.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: I get a little I get a little confusing timeline.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: I've been working just like a bad science fiction book.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: If people have been noticing that there's a lot of
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: weird off with release dates. I've been working on this
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: new show thing and and it's got me gone all
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: damn time. So we've been having a hell of time
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: getting our shows recorded and put out on time. That's
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: why they're all caddywampus like you're hearing news and news
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: item anymore. That's because of that reason. But you know
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: when that's not yeah, it means it means off kilter
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: like that before.
• 7:21
  Speaker 8: We also got korein the other day with a joke
• 7:24
  Speaker 8: and it looks like it smells like updog and then
• 7:27
  Speaker 8: she goes, what's up dog? She just walked right into it.
• 7:31
  Speaker 8: It was very earnest.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: What's up dog? Yeah?
• 7:35
  Speaker 8: And then you respond to say, not much dog, what's
• 7:37
  Speaker 8: up with you?
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: That's good?
• 7:38
  Speaker 8: And uh, we got you think tell him you invented it.
• 7:45
  Speaker 7: Uh.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: One of the things we're gonna be doing on maybe
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I'm the only one that knows this. One of the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: things we're gonna be doing on me Eater Radio Live
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: is uh, I want to do segments on tattoos you regret,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: so if you've got a hunting fishing tattoo that you regret, now,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: it's gotta be a hunting fishing tattoo. Like I wanted
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: to get my wild Turkey super Slam on my arm.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It was a map of the continent with little turkey
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: feet where I completed my super slam. Now, at some
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: point I would come on the show and talk about
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: how I regret doing that once I get it. So
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: if you got like tattoos like that, we need to
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: hear from you. Yeah, but I don't want to hear
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: about your ex wife being tattooed on your arm. I
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: don't care about it.
• 8:30
  Speaker 10: Right, Like, you know, I know that we've talked about
• 8:33
  Speaker 10: Chester's tattoo.
• 8:36
  Speaker 6: Oh, his Chesterly tattoo looks like his scrolling tattoo.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: We should do the first Yeah, we could do the
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: first episode with Chester with his fly fishing scrolling tattoo.
• 8:50
  Speaker 10: But maybe just like going to you know for twenty
• 8:53
  Speaker 10: seconds what it is. I know hopefully people have already
• 8:56
  Speaker 10: been watching and listening by now.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Media to Radio Live is a live radio show that
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: comes out on Thursdays on the Internet. So it's not
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: like the old kind of like we're not on like blank, Megahurts,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we're not broadcasting from ninety nine point seven Mega.
• 9:08
  Speaker 10: Hurts broadcasting on the YouTube media.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: It's a classic radio show. It's a classic morning radio
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: show in the afternoons on Thursdays on.
• 9:16
  Speaker 10: The internet eleven am, mst.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, classic morning radio show on the internet.
• 9:21
  Speaker 8: We got the prime window somehow.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's not quite drive time, it's not lunchtime.
• 9:27
  Speaker 10: It's kind of lunch time untime.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Lunchtime in New York time. And it's a it's a
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: it's a radio show, live call ins, we check in
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: from people around the country. We got correspondence. It's a
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: lot of fun. Anything can happen, and we're gonna do,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: and we're gonna cover tattoos people regret.
• 9:44
  Speaker 8: And Steve was complaining about how by time some of
• 9:47
  Speaker 8: these podcasts comes out, the news is out of fashion.
• 9:49
  Speaker 8: That won't be the case with media radio.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: So now we can do.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: Now you can do.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: We can do real things when they're happening good. Like,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: for instance, I'm gonna say I'm gonna tell a story
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: right now that isn't true because in my world last
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: night I went to yoga with my wife, which I
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: do once a month.
• 10:06
  Speaker 8: Is that a compromise?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: What am I saying? I do it once a year.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: I go to yoga like about once a year. Last
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: night and she asked me if I liked it, and
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I didn't like it because a guy set
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: up right in front of me, And I said, I
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: was telling her she thinks this is indefensible. I was like,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: when I see a guy come to yoga by himself,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: I view it like an adult at a when an
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: adult comes to like a children's playground without a kid.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Like I'm like, I met yoga. I'm with my wife.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Why are you down here? You know what I mean? Like,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not here with my wife for restorative yoga. I'm
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: here like I don't want to be here. I'm here
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: because my wife wanted to.
• 10:43
  Speaker 8: Come once a year in negotiation.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then like some guy comes in by himself,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Like what are you doing down here?
• 10:49
  Speaker 9: Did he get a good stretch?
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: If once a year? If once year was meeting in
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: the middle, where did you start on that?
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: I thought you were saying he was in front of
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: me and you were liketed.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Second, No, I just like the whole time I had
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: to look at this guy stretching out. It's like I
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: couldn't stand it. Man, that's a lot about my psychologist.
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: I don't blame you.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: And it was called restorative yoga, which means you don't
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: do much. You don't do much.
• 11:18
  Speaker 8: Was once a year in negotiation, Steve, did you have
• 11:20
  Speaker 8: to Uh, how'd you arrive at that number?
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: I'd gone the longest had ever gone without seeing my
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: wife because I was gone for two weeks for work.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Now I was with my kids for two weeks fishing,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: and so I had seen my wife in a whole month.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So we're just trying to capitalize on opportunities to hang
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: out together. And so that involved me going to yoga.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: So if you see I look very stretched out, that's
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: what's going on.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: You restored.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yep, here's some good news. So we reported during the
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Trump administration, we reported heavily on their efforts to increase
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: recreational access on the refuge system. So a deal with
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: the refuge systems is how can I explain this? Help
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: me explain this? Randall National Force. Let's say you're doing
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: this on a national forest, a national forest lands. The
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: fish and Game laws of the state are going to
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: apply on national forest lands right, yep, it's like the
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: national for the National Forest Service, which is an arm
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: of the USDA. Like, they don't make regulatory overlays on
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: top of state regulations.
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: Why you look like, well, there are certain circumstances. It's
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: sort of like open unless otherwise posted, right, I mean,
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: like there's certain areas in national forests, like where there
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: might be a recreational site or wherever where there are
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: boundaries where you can't hunt and fish.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: No. No, but they don't have regulatory overlays. You wouldn't go
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: and be like a forest. I see what you're you can't.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: Not a different limit?
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well the refuge system, the National Wildlife
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Refuge System caused causes a lot of confusion because they
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: have a lot of regulatory overlays specific to the refuge areas,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: and so when you're going there, you can look at
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: what's allowed in your state, and then you also got
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: to go like, well, what about on the refuge because
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the refuge is going to have all kinds of extra
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: things in place, right, like extra regulations, and so it
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: creates a lot of confusion. Under the Trump administration, they
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: were trying to open up a lot of hunting and
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: fishing things because some of the regul some of the
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: refuge regulations felt somewhat arbitrary, meaning you know, there's like
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: refuges that you couldn't fish on, and no one's quitt
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: clear on why you couldn't fish there. Now, the refuges
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: often have like a very specific purpose, like you could
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: have a refuge meant to be a nesting ground for
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: shore birds, right, and so you'll take regulatory measures to
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: help it achieve that specific purpose and goal. But what
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: they were doing is they were looking at refuges and
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: being where are we missing opportunities, Like where could we
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: increase hunting and fishing access, decrease regulatory confusion, and open
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: up opportunities to hunt and fish in ways that won't
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: compromise the goal of the refuge system. And that and
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: the Biden Biden Harris administration just announced fifty three new
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: hunting and fishing opportunities on approximately two hundred and eleven
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: thousand acres nationwide on the National Wildlife Refuge System. This
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: came into place we had on Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: used to Martha Stewart watching too with some shopping. I've
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: been shopping for plate wear for lighters or CBD. I
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: means Martha Williams. Martha Williams the former head of Montana
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks or which we call
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: fishing parks for short. So Martha Williams used to run
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Montana's state fishing Game Agency. She now runs the US
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Fish and Wildlife Service. So under her leadership at US
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Fishing Wildlife Service, we're seeing a continuation of expansions on refuges.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: So if you got a refuge down the road and
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: it always kind of burns your ass about what you
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: can and can't do, you should go revisit what's going
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: on there.
• 15:42
  Speaker 8: And that's in nine states. I feel like this sort
• 15:44
  Speaker 8: of news sometimes just applies to like far away in Alaska,
• 15:47
  Speaker 8: but this is, you know, very close to home for
• 15:50
  Speaker 8: a lot of folks. Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Washington,
• 15:54
  Speaker 8: West Virginia, Wisconsin.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Good job, Spencer. You should come out to show more off.
• 15:59
  Speaker 8: Another thing, Steve, is he still going? There was a
• 16:01
  Speaker 8: note in here for you to plug media crosswords.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Do you know you didn't do it?
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: Okay, here's my opportunity, Steve said, Oh, and there's MEDIAA Crosswords.
• 16:08
  Speaker 8: What's that? Oh, no, I know what that is. And
• 16:10
  Speaker 8: then and then we just uh.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: We'll get into it.
• 16:12
  Speaker 8: Okay, you want to know it looks like a new
• 16:14
  Speaker 8: thing when it's not a new thing. Well, Media Radio Live,
• 16:17
  Speaker 8: just like media Crossword Puzzles came out about a month ago.
• 16:20
  Speaker 8: Every Wednesday morning, we have a crossword puzzle that you
• 16:23
  Speaker 8: can get at the medieater dot com backslash games. There's
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: twenty clues. It's all specific to the med eater universe,
• 16:30
  Speaker 8: sort of like Media to Trivia. If you like that podcast,
• 16:33
  Speaker 8: you'll like the Mediata Crossword Puzzles.
• 16:35
  Speaker 9: Uh.
• 16:35
  Speaker 8: The first one we have coming out is outdoor theme,
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: the second one National Parks, the third one hunting. So
• 16:41
  Speaker 8: if you enjoy this podcast or MEDIAA Trivia, you'll like
• 16:44
  Speaker 8: that the Mediata Crossword Puzzles.
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: And we're a month in and I've been doing tremendously.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I will say, sure, Karin put a letter in here,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 16:59
  Speaker 9: Scratch it up out.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If it wasn't his grandpa, it'd be a great story.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: It goes like this, there's a guy who hunts his
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: grand Now it feels just as Stranger's land. I almost
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: want to tell it not true to make it better.
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: Well, it's his grandpa's neighbor.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, hold on, there you.
• 17:21
  Speaker 10: Go, grandparents neighbor's place. I just put it in yellow.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, it is a good story. Does this guy that
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: has to hunt permission on his grandpa's neighbor's place. Yeah,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I got confused there from minute. I read it one way,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: then I read it another way. It's a guy writing
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: and like I was talking about, Uncle Chesty was here
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: and we were talking about being courteous to landowners and
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: having the attitude of is someone lets you hunt or
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: fish or trap on the land, you'd like bring him stuff.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: You get some sausage made up from your deer and
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: bring him that, and bring him a gift card to
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: to Murdoch's or or you know, like do little things
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: like that. Go a fifty dollars gift card to Murdocks
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: so he can buy some whatever. I don't know, Just
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: do stuff like that. Show that landowner that you realize
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: that you know, show that landowner your appreciation, and follow
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: their rules. I was saying, if they tell you not
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: to drive past that windmill, stop short of the windmill, right,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: And this guy writes in to say he's been hunting
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: on his grandpa, his neighbor's place. The guy gave him
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: two rules. No rifles, he wanted a shotgun only, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: he didn't want anyone driving four wheelers unless they were
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: retrieving a deer. And he said, other than just simple
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: acts of common courtesy. I hunted that place for years,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: and I just followed those two rules, those two simple
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: rules I paid attention to. That guy then sells the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: property and includes in it that is law, and includes
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: in his deal that I'll sell you this land on
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: the agreement that these two people can keep hunting there.
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's yeah, pretty solid, that's cool.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Yep, follow the rules.
• 19:13
  Speaker 9: Some good people right there on both sides.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Now, this is the most this is the most here's
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: the most thought provoking thing that's ever ben on this podcast.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: You ready for this? This is the most thought provoking
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: thing I've ever ever been uttered here, m I was
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: just listening to episode five seventy five where you discuss
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Larry the musky Man's rebuttal of your anyways, here's the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: part I have heard. It said that you won't generally
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: grow big bucks on ground that doesn't grow good tomatoes.
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: Mm hmm.
• 19:57
  Speaker 9: That's all.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Except for try to refute that.
• 20:01
  Speaker 8: Okay, I think our top our top tomato producers are
• 20:06
  Speaker 8: California and Florida, who are not known for their big
• 20:08
  Speaker 8: old white.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: They're not known for good tomatoes. They're known for bad
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: tomatoes and transport. Well, yeah, foy, it doesn't make good tomatoes.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: They make tomatoes that you could throw against the wall
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: and not hurt.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Good tomatoes come from where I grew up.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Good tomatoes come from where I grew up.
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: They also come from New Jersey tomatoes, they.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Don't come from Bozeman, Montana.
• 20:31
  Speaker 8: Tell you that A more simple adage to this would
• 20:35
  Speaker 8: just be like, if it grows good corn, I think
• 20:37
  Speaker 8: that New Jersey got corn than five miles, you'll grow
• 20:41
  Speaker 8: big white tail bucks.
• 20:42
  Speaker 9: How about that for the why?
• 20:45
  Speaker 10: Because people are probably wondering why you stop short Like
• 20:48
  Speaker 10: by one sentence.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I was told this is because some soils lack minerals
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: like calcium that are required for both antler growth and
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: tomato development. Hmmm, I'm just gonna have be that think
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: that's true.
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: Let's I think it's more thought provoking if you leave
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: out his hypothesis there.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Like not get into it. Yeah, let the listeners. That's
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: why I didn't do it.
• 21:14
  Speaker 8: I think maybe you should think about it the other
• 21:15
  Speaker 8: way that if there's a place that's known for big
• 21:17
  Speaker 8: white tail bucks that will grow really good tomatoes, that's first, yes, first, yeah,
• 21:23
  Speaker 8: that's like I think my best turkey hunting spots I've
• 21:26
  Speaker 8: ever found in my life were also had a lot
• 21:28
  Speaker 8: of bobcats, So you wouldn't be like, well, the best
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: place like, uh you find bobcats turkey?
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're scouting for turkeys, you actually just go
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: out and look for bobcats, that's right, or some bobcat
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: tracks at a cross and sit there and.
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: Call looking for good white tail bucks. You go plant
• 21:47
  Speaker 8: some tomatoes.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: See how they do. So then you gotta get permission
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: and be like, hey, can I get permission hunt? And
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: they're like oh yeah, sure, Like well, listen, I'm gonna
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: be over in May and you'll notice me out could
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: bait and a little tomato. It's all part of the plant.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: It's all part of the plan. I'm not gonna get
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: into more stuff about Larry the Muskie Man struck a
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: chord with people.
• 22:17
  Speaker 9: He absolutely did.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: A guy wrote in taking half a Finger to task
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: for saying that, uh, we had colossal biosciences on and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: talked about the science and ethics of cloning mammoths. Half
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a Finger wrote in talking about how mamos or losers,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: but he'd like to see one. This guy wrote in
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: being like half a Finger's got it all wrong, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: he's got a BA and an MA in anthropology. Don't
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: don't isn't it? Isn't it implied? Like you don't list
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: all your.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, unless you I mean, I think that would be
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: more common if you if your degrees aren't related to
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: one another, like if you have a if you have a.
• 23:11
  Speaker 9: B A in English and then an.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I have an associates degree too. I'm not
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: gonna because I went to community college. I'm not going
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to go like associates, bachelors Masters.
• 23:22
  Speaker 8: You should English. What was the associates in?
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: I don't know what they call it.
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, I got I got one of them too.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't put down all of them. He put
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: down B A and M A and anthropologies get to
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: the end, do you know what I mean? Like when
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: he turned fifty, you don't list all the years you've.
• 23:40
  Speaker 10: Been I guess, but just trying to say that. For
• 23:45
  Speaker 10: two years or three years he studied at master's.
• 23:48
  Speaker 9: Level anthrow and then for four years.
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: He studied six years of fire read and in.
• 23:55
  Speaker 10: That single subject, I like it.
• 23:59
  Speaker 9: I ever sign my emails.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: No, yeah, I think he should cut one of them out.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Whatever one he likes most, he should leave in and
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: cut that one out. Half a figures working on something.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Are you guys familiar with the ideas of the Miriam's elk? Yes,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: so we have check me if I'm wrong live today
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: we have there's three American elk Rocky Mountain, Roosevelt, two Lee,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: and the two leads are in California. And it's assumed
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that the Miriams, the Miriams elk is extinct and Eastern. Yeah, oh,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: because yeah, they read You're right, the Eastern is extinct.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: So the ones that are in the East now are
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Rocky Mountain.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: I think there was a span of like thirty some
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: years between the last Eastern Pennsylvania until they got reintroduced
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: with Rocky Mountain. Just a little tidpit.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Heffelfinger's been running all around getting old elk skeletons and
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: pulling DNA from them because currently they only know about
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: four specimens of Miriam's elk from skeletons like places like
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the Smithsonian and whatnot. Heffelfinger in two thousand and six
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: he found in Miriam's elk, and he found two in
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: New York that no one knew about. At Smithsonian. I
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: think he found two there. He goes on to say,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: there's always been a lot of talk about whether the
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Miriam's elk was really any different from those in southern
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Colorado at the time. If they were different, then we
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: should be able to detect if any survived from the
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: last report in Arizona around nineteen hundred to the first
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: translocations from Yellowstone Nastal Park in nineteen thirteen, meaning Arizona
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: had Miriam's elk when they were extrapated from Arizona. It's
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: hard to picture elk were extirpated from Arizona and when
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: they brought when they reintroduced elk, as is often happens
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: when you have a like an endemic variety goes extinct
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: and then later you want to reintroduce it. You got
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: to pull from a new source. So Arizona had Miriam's elk,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: and when they were extrapated, they were replaced by Rocky
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Mountain Elk. In nineteen thirteen, Hefflefinger got ten thousand bucks
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: from Dallas Safari Club as part of the Conservation trail
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Blazer Award, which is funding his collection of samples. He says,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: I just think that, He says, I just think it's
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: cool as shit and had to share it. So he's
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: out there scourring around to find out is it true?
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Was there like a different type of elk out there?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Heffelfinger also reported on something here. I don't want to
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: get into too much detail because it's brewing right now.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: We would discuss for that. Why there's no record book Havelina.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: You can't shoot a record book Calina, like Boone and
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Crockett doesn't have a category, and Pope and Young doesn't
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: have a category, mostly because Boone and Crockett won't accept it.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Half a Finger put together this guy, like why does
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: this dude sleep? Half a finger puts together a big
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: proposal which he then takes to like the board or
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: whatever at Boone and Crockett, laying out his case, you know,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: like laying out a presentation about why there, why they
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: should be, why there should be you should be able
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: to shoot a Boon and Crocket packery or you know
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: collared peckery have alena and and steps are being taken.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: It's not done yet, but he is soliciting them to
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: create a Heaveleena category in the Boone and Crocket record club.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: I have one that I.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Feel will be in there because who does have it?
• 28:15
  Speaker 7: S C?
• 28:15
  Speaker 8: I probably them, and I don't know.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, was there a reason why they're never there? Hadn't been.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: They're just not regarded that they haven't traditionally been regarded
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: as a big game animal. They're not a small game.
• 28:30
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you're like bridging a gap to it feels like
• 28:32
  Speaker 8: coyotes and fox start doing.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: You gotta draw tag, You draw tag. Okay, now you
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: got draw tag for cranes. In some places there should
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: be a Boone and Crocket crane. You talk me into it.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: What are you gonna measure?
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: It's beak wingspan. I suppose that.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Because that doesn't last. It's gotta be bone. Okay, I
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: got a record.
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: But there's there's one more subspecies of elk that some
• 29:05
  Speaker 8: people recognize, including like the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Tell me, I tell you if I agree.
• 29:10
  Speaker 8: The Manitobin Elk, which is like Upper Great Plains and
• 29:15
  Speaker 8: uh Southern Canada, and they say that one is still around.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I disagree with that or not.
• 29:20
  Speaker 8: You could have dealer's choice and if you you want
• 29:22
  Speaker 8: to recognize that one or not, you.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Got any tattoos, you're gonna submit to our tattoos.
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: I regret I was thinking about. I think my only
• 29:29
  Speaker 8: regrets are like maybe making some bigger, Like I got
• 29:32
  Speaker 8: the dead Man's hand here and that was my second
• 29:34
  Speaker 8: ever tattoo. I wish I'd have gone bigger.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because when you get old wrinkly, that's gonna come.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: You're not gonna be tell what's going on.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: So no, none that I regret.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Yet it is a form of regret you were talking about.
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: Is that batman?
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: What was that? Like a heavy metal symbol?
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: When I was working undercover.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I got you got that, say the Batman in the middle.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: That's yeah. Yeah. I used to work with a guy
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: that liked Bacardi so much. You got the Boccardi bat
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: tattooed on him.
• 30:07
  Speaker 8: I have the hands bear tattooed on me.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: He said to me, you know, when you're drinking Bocardi's
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: so fast and you get the red splotches all over
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: your neck.
• 30:18
  Speaker 8: Did you say yes or no?
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: I was like, why no? Tell me more. We were
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: actually having a Bocardi yet the time, with this little
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: known beverage called coke Coca Cola. All right, guy, you
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: ready you got any tattoos?
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: I don't have any tattoos.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: You do you regret it?
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: No, I don't regret it at all. That's kind of funny.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: I hang out in Madison, you know, and it's just
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: like the men there aren't tough enough to have tattoos.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know how that'll play here, but I got
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: to Bozeman yesterday and I noticed that.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: You know, all the men have, you know, heavily tattoos
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: or heavily tattoos in you know, in mathsine they're not.
• 31:01
  Speaker 7: So.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really curious. Like when you if in the future,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: if people will remember this as an era of tattoos, Yeah,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I would say so, like when our little kids are
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: doing Halloween, Like when my kids are in they're in
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: the colle in college and they're goofing on the twenty
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: twenties like now, like they might dress like we're dressing
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: like the eighties. We're dressing like the seventies. We're dressing
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: like the sixties. When they're dressing like the twenty twenties,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: will they put a bunch of fake tattoos on?
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say so, yeah, especially if they live out here.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: And people be like, oh, the twenty twenties, I don't know. Uh, Okay,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: tell me what happened with uh? Why didn't tell how
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: mink made international news during the COVID pandemic.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Okay, So in early to twenty twenty during the pandemic,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: I remember it very specific, and I was I actually
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: had to go to a wool conference cause I'm also
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: in the wool business. I was in Scottsdale for the
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: wool conference and I had this great time, and I
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: flew back into a hair on a Saturday night. I
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: had a hotel room with my wife and we were
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: going to go to a play the next morning with
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: some friends.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: But you had to interrupt the play to buy wool.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: And so she picked me up. We had this great dinner,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: and I communicate with my customers in China on we Chat,
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: and typically you know every day that I get one
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: or two messages when I wake up in the morning.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: You know, almost never on a Sunday, and you know,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: seldom on a Saturday. And so I woke up on
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Sunday morning and I remember the Hampton Inn that I
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: was in, you know, downtown Chicago. And I woke up
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: and I looked at my phone. I had thirteen messages
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: from my customers in China, and it was pictures of
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: them going trying to get back into Beijing after the
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Chinese New Year or whatever it was, and you know,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: just miles of cars because they were checking everybody's temperature
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: on the way back, and other customers calling me up saying,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: we are so screwed that we are you know, they
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: are shutting this whole thing down. And at the very
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: beginning of COVID, a like days after I would say
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: days after this happened. Okay, not days after the outbreak
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: early January, but in early February, a professor in China
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: came out and said that it's it's mink that's causing this,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: and so right away, even though the guy had no
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: reason to say it, it was totally false. It was
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: since proven false, but he met causing he was kitting kaboodle.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: You ever heard that?
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she just heard it this morning but anyway, uh, yeah,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: it was it. It came out that and then they
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: were like telling me, you know, hey, they're they're blaming
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: our industry, you know. And immediately the Chinese government you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: said no raw skins in to the country, and we were,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: you know, we were shipping a lot of stuff at
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: the time. It makes a skin raw if it's not
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: tan it's just just dried where you know, where you
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: ship it, where you can ship it. You know, it's
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: it's not going to putrefy you know, while it's being
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: ship because it's dried, but it's not tanned where it
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: has any long term you know, viability. But you know,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: most a lot of the tanning was done.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: In China said no raw mink.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: They said no raw anything. You couldn't import anything raw,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: but just over overnight.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Kind of a little late for that because i mean
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: they the pandemic is coming up China.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but they were afraid that something would be you know,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: contaminated because they they literally held the disease out for
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: two years out of their country. Besides my you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: kind of minor outbreaks, so they they just ended it.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: So you know, everybody thought it was kind of over
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: and we were dressing some stuff in Cambodia already because
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: they have a free trade agreement. So it actually sort
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: of benefited us in some ways because you know, we
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: were already you know, shipping stuff to Cambodia, and then
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: we that's the route. We still go that way. You
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: still can't import raw skins into China. It's it's impossible.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: But yeah, my uh, I ended up going to the
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: music all that day, and it was, you know, my
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: stomach was just you know, I couldn't hardly take it. It was, uh, gosh,
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: maybe mean girls, I don't know, but it was. I
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: don't really remember it. It was it was it was
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: a rough, rough day.
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: I mean I went to me girls. It wasn't that good, right,
• 35:14
  Speaker 8: So yeah, makes sense.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: I remember going for a ride. We got up at like,
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: you know, five in the morning and went for a
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: ride around you know, Chicago, and there was nobody there.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Me telling my wife, you know, hey, you know, things
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: are gonna have to change, you know, And my son
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: still remembers me calling him up at college and saying, Christian,
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: you know, you can't you know, go out to eat
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: any more of it. You know, it's really gonna get bad.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Here, well, walk me into how they killed millions of Okays.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: So so that so right away it got linked to mink,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: and then that sort of died off. Okay, but you know,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: and there's and there's the the largest uh producer of
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: mink outside of China, you know, was Denmark.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, can you can you be another favorite and clarify
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: there's wild mink and rant.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: There's there's wild mink. I mean, percentage wise of what's
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: produced in the world, wild mink is you know, probably
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: under ten thousand at this point. And at one point
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: there was definitely over one hundred million mink produced commercially.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: Maybe there was even one hundred and sixty million there
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: was there was definitely over one hundred million. Though if
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: you take what was produced in China and what was
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: produced outside of China. So you know, Copenhagen sold thirty
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: million mink a year on their sale they produced in
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: their country, you know, I don't know, maybe fifteen to
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: twenty million. You know, they got mink from Poland and
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: wherever else. But anyway, some of the mink were susceptible
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: to getting the disease. Okay, So early on the Danish
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: government said, you know, we you know, some of these
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: farms are infected and we want you to kill everything.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Some people think that it was completely politically motivated, that
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: they just wanted the end the production of mink in
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: in Denmark and it was just the government didn't like it.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: And it was a huge industry for him. I mean,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: they sold thirty million mink, you know at the peak,
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: thirty million times, you know, probably getting very close to
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: one hundred dollars apiece that you know, they they exported
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: out of out of Copenhagen. You know, it was definitely
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: the biggest exchange in the world for mink. They had
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: their last sale just two months ago and they had
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: a huge party. It was you know, a lot of
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: people from the fur industry went because it was the
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: last hurrah. You know, Copenhagen was the center of the
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: fur business for the last thirty years or so, and
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: you know, now they were still selling mink from you know,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: they had they had had a lot of mink stored
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: when this happened, because the market was already in the
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: downturn before this happened. So there was a lot of
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: people that had bought mink at Copenhagen and Copenhagen hadn't
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: sold some of the mink, and so there was you know,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: millions of mink in storage at this time. And the
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: mink that they killed, you know, they they didn't keep
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: those mink they killed. They destroyed them, They burned them, buried.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Them, whatever. And it didn't pelt them.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: They didn't pelt them out.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Some bum information.
• 37:50
  Speaker 7: No.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: But there's the reason you probably heard that is because
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: they said, people, are you know that Copenhagen was still
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: selling mink up until two months ago they had their
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: last sale and the reason for that was is the market,
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: you know, was poor and they they had a lot
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: in stock. So they ended up killing off, you know,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: every mink in the in the country and uh, you know,
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: and there was people that you know, they got got
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: COVID here in their mink as well. You know, are
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: they rebuilding, No, they're they're not rebuilding. The ranchers got
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: a settlement. They haven't paid out all the settlement yet.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: It was a it was really a fantastic settlement for
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: the for the ranchers. If they get it all paid
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know they've paid out some of it. But
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of controversy because it was you know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: the numbers were staggering of what they got because they
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: were paid to you know, never produce again, and so
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: they didn't just get the value of those mink, they
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: got the value of those mink plus. So it really
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: decimated the fur business. It really decimated the ranch for
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: a business, which you know is difficult on the trade
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: because you know, like the money for marketing and sort
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: of promoting for you know, the biggest entity we had,
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: you know, was Coconhating because they handled so many skins
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: with so many dollars that you know, if they did
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: a one percent levy to promote fur around the world
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: that you know, it meant something. You know, they could
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: actually do something. So it was a it was a
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: tough loss for the fur industry. So you know, now
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: we're really left with you know, Saga in Finland as
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: the only major you know seller of mink. There is
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: a small auction you know, in American American Mink Exchange.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: They still collect some of the American mink, but you
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: know it's much smaller than Saga. But yeah, it's uh,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: we went from having you know NAFA Seattle for exchange, uh, Saga,
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Copenhagen and uh, you know down to basically you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: just Saga now. But yeah, that was a major hit,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: and it was because of really because of COVID, but
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: you know, really maybe not because of COVID. Maybe they
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: the government just wanted it to be done.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Will that eventually cause uh, with the with all that
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: production taken off, well that eventually trickled down to wild
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: caught stuff well gaining value because it's not competing against
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: all that.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Well, we hope. So so last year, I don't have
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: exact numbers, but let's just say the auction sold around
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: fifteen sixteen million skins and there was still only around
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: seven produced seven million, and yet they sold that many,
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: so that many skins are going to be used to
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: make coats and you know this this season, you know
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: they'll be pelting here in a couple months and a
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: couple three months, and you know the production in the
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: West will be you know six seven million. Well, you're
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: not going to have Copenhagen selling you know, ten million
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: old skins this year. You're not going to have even Saga.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: They're not going to have skins that are left over either.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: You're going to have closer to you know, eight or
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: ten or so million makes killed or you know, sold
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: at auction this year. So you know, what was fifteen
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: million or seventeen million last year will be you know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: nine or ten million this year. So definitely there will
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: not be you know, as many as many skins available
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: as what was demanded at the price of last year.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: And I think that's the important thing to look at,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: is you know, at last year's price, yes, which was
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: a you know, a price that was rising but still
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: not crazy high. There was a demand for fifteen, sixteen,
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: seventeen million mink. And this year, if there's only going
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: to be you know, say seven or eight million mink,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: does that price have to go up because that mini
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: mink was demanded, well, that many mink was demanded at
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: a much lower price. You know, if we if we
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: want to go and double the price, you know, will
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: there be you know, will will they will the consumer
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: still buy buy the coat in China or in Russia
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: or wherever. And you know, you know, certainly nobody knows
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: that answer. I mean, you know, i'd say in the
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: United States, you know, we raised the prices of a
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: lot of things. I mean, the price of a hotel
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: room here in this town. You know, from five years
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: ago is much much higher, maybe three times higher. And
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: you know, I still got one. But we don't know
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: what the Chinese consumer is going to do and you know,
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: the or the worldwide consumer.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Of you know, ranch mik is going to do.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: But certainly if the price you would think if maybe
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: it could double, it's not really that high right now,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: it would certainly have a huge impact. Just just the
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: what the amount it's risen in the past twelve months
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: has has certainly helped our industry. You know, we were
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: at certainly historical lows and we've come off those historical lows,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: and yeah, it's it's certainly helped.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: So what people in the world buy for codes.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: I would say, you know, Chinese are obviously big consumers.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: They manufacture and they actually consume at the retail level.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: You know, Russia is still a big, you know player.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: They don't have the money they had, you know, five
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: years ago, of course because of the war, but they're
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: still you know, they still fur as in their culture.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Is there any kind of animal rights anti fur movement
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: in China?
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, there is, sure, Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Some of
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: the especially like you know, some of the movie stars
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: are against it. In China, and they you know, they
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: won't do some of the ads for the people selling online.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: The first Yeah, yeah, sure there is. Yeah.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Can you tell the story of We've talked about this
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: a bunch of times. Is the company Canada Goose was
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: selling parkas with Kyle Trim and they quit. Now they
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: have made it a big announcement from now i'm're only
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: using recycled fur. I took that to be I took
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: that to be that they were bowing to pressure from
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: anti fur people, or they were looking at how are
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: we going to achieve growth while courting the controversy of fur,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: and decided that a good move into the future would
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: be to eliminate that potential pr hazard of using fur.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Like there's a big hunting apparel company in this town
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: and they're like moving away from showing dead animals and
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: firearms because they're like afraid about a future in which
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: they're associated with those things.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: And I thought that.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I thought that that would be why they were doing that.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Do you feel that that's true or not true?
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Okay? I certainly cannot speak for them, Okay, but I
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: have my own idea to take a stab I have.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: I have my own ideas and I see it in
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: a little different light. And I because I have seen
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: this happen so many time.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you you're far more credential to have
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: an opinion than I am.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't know about that, but you are. And
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: I'm sure that you know it entered into their mind,
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: you know, supposedly, you know, I don't know. There was
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: some people, you know, some animal rights people had bought shares,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: you know. I mean I've heard all those stories, of course.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: But what I see as as a greater problem is.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: Can you touch on their exp I mean, like they
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: went from being a specialty item like cold weather stuff
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: for out you know, sled dogg ers whatever, to being
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: New York subway where right?
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, they exploded, right, And you know I would
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: I would like to think that, you know, it was
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: that the fur is what differentiated them. I mean, I
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: think it made their their garment look cool, you know.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: And I think, what, in my opinion, what's what I've
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: seen in other areas where people have quit using fur,
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: is this when they started using that trim, the coyote
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: was really out of favor, and the trim was very
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: very cheap. You know, maybe they could have put it
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: on their coat for ten bucks. And by the time that,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: you know, craze was over, and you know, you guys
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: have probably talked about kyote prices, you know they had,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe some coyotes had gone up by certainly
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: a factor of ten, you know. I mean, you couldn't
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: give a coyote away to being worth over one hundred dollars,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: you know, for a good one. And the trim became
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: a rather expensive element of the coat. And when you
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: start talking about you know, I do know kind of
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: their numbers of what they sold, but you know, hundreds
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: of thousands of coats a year with you know, a
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: thirty eight dollars trim on it, it's a big number.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: And if you think that you can sell that coat
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: without that trim, and you know everybody here can do
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: the math, you know, boy, profitability is a lot better.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: And you know, natural fibers are that is the one
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: limitation that they have, and that is that there is
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: you know, a maximum number of something that can be produced,
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: you know, typically, and it always pushes the price. And
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: I think it was I think certainly cost savings had
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: an effect on it. I see it in all natural
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: fibers that people look to cost savings. You know, they
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: use a petroleum based product. You know, it's twenty five
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: cents a pound for petroleum, and that price really doesn't
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: go up much, really doesn't go down much. And no
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: matter how successful your garment is, it never is going
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: to have effect on the price of of of the
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: input of polyester. And I just I think that a
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: lot of it was a cost saving thing. You know,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: maybe they made I had no idea, but maybe they
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: made a couple hundred bucks a garment. You know, especially
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: if they sold it to a department store. They can't
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: sell it to them for retail. And you know, if
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: thirty five dollars of that was going to the trim boy,
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: you know, the equation changes a lot for their profitability.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: And I think you can see it with all natural fibers.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: You know, big companies don't like to use it if
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: it's successful because it ends up pushing the price. You know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: they they themselves if they're a big enough company, and
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Canada Goose they did. They ended up having the effect
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: of literally you know, dominating the coyote market and changing
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: the price to a factor of ten. Can you imagine that,
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: you know, you start out at one price and by
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: the time you're done, you know, ten years later, you know,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: it's a factor of ten that you've affected the price.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: You know, no matter how many coats they sell, they're
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: never going to affect the price a polyester.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So, uh, is it?
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: I was gonna that was, but I don't But I
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: don't speak for them, but I've seen it so many
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: times that you know, time and time again that.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: It's it's difficult on this is gonna be My next
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: question is I've heard just guys saying that they that
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: that company actually drove the price of coyotes. Oh, absolutely,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: like that, that demand of that that that fashion explosion.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Of a coyote for Actually, there's no question really, oh
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: my god. Absolutely they dominated.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: They were.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I mean you know that you have to realize that
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: in China. You know, there was copycatters that probably sold
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: three times as many coats as they did, maybe ten
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: times as many coats. People that you know, copy their
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: coat and sold it in China, Well they all put
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: a coyote trim on it, so you know, Canada, Goose.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: So the people copying them just absolutely dominated the market.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, you could buy a fake in China that
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: you know, you couldn't tell the difference. And uh, but
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: they certainly they didn't fake the coyote trim. You know
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: that was still on there.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Seth, can you hold out that fox? Re meant?
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Can you show me? I heard a rumor once? This
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: is not a rumor that makes it sound saucy. Someone
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: told me that when you make when you rough a parka, okay,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: you could grab can can people see that park of
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: when you rough a parka, that you're Someone told me
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: that you're actually cutting a circle here, hold that up, Seth,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: and you're you're cutting it like this. Let me see
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: that some bitch from it. Someone told me that you
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: take the kyo and you're you're kind of like snipping
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: here and snipping here, and that's the rough.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Is that true or not true?
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: That's not that's sort of true. Okay. If you want
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: to show me that, I'll I'll show you. Okay. So, typically,
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: on a coyote, which is a little bit similar to
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: a fox, that's why it's really important to look at
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: the neck because you'd love to have the neck look
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: a lot like the rump. Okay, And uh, typically a
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: coyote gets bad in the neck first, and it's it's
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: really easy.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I'm just reminding you to criticize that, right, So, I mean,
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: the easy way to do this, because especially for the
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: trim is to go like this, Okay, if you can,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: but if you so, you're gonna burn a whole one up.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: You're oh, you're gonna bork you. You'll, well, with a coyote,
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: you maybe get three, maybe four, maybe even five five trims. Yeah,
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: I mean these guys one out of one.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Sure, Oh, these guys are professionals.
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: You should one of coyotes right there.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: So yeah, you could grab one of those coyotes.
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: So when you put a show them, show us with
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: the real thing.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: So these are actually pretty nice coyotes, and and that
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: shows the those are good. And you could you could
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: go down this whole strip and make a nice coyote strip.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: Which the problem is like if you have a bad neck,
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: you'll cut it in half here and then you'll make
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: two strips and you'll and the problem is you have
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: to join them.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Well something looks as similar, Well, you have to.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: You have to join them, the two together. So then
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: so then the problem that you have if you join
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: if you've got a bad neck, which is what happens
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: on a lot of coyotes. This one's got a little
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: bit of of some problems right here, probably a little
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: dick damage and there would be a spot you'd have
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: to correct there. But when you join them, you end
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: up with a mohawk or you end up with a
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: valley because it's right in the center of the trim.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: So that's a problem. There is actually even ways you
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: can let this out or lengthen make it wider and
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: then lengthen it out. You can make some what they
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: call drops in it, but it's not as simple to
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: make a really nice strip of just going around it.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: I mean you could go around it like this, and
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: then you would also have that joining problem because your
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: joinery would be sort of towards the belly because it's
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: not long enough to go or go around. So what
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: you'd have is this kind of you know, shorter you know,
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: getting towards the belly you know, right here, and that
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: would not look good. You wouldn't want that on your trim.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: People shouldn't be allowed to tell people's soulf it's not correct.
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: Like news.
• 51:51
  Speaker 10: Guy, you had a note to me when we chatted
• 51:54
  Speaker 10: on the phone about the price of coyotes about twenty
• 51:58
  Speaker 10: or so years before Can and a goose cup.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Popular, I remember going like to Hong Kong when
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: the center of the fur business was in Hong Kong
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: and maybe nineteen late nineties maybe, and you know, you
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: could you could almost touch the whole business in China
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: just by going around to places in Hong Kong, you know.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: And I'd always I had a kind of a partner
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: there and we'd go from, you know, place to place,
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: and you know, we'd have our sample bag and you know,
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: we were trying to get him interested in wild for
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: because they were all using ranch for at the time.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: The business in Hong Kong, it was centered there because
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: you know, during all the ships would stop there with sailors,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: they would they would have cheap for coats made there,
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: and they actually manufactured them in Hong Kong. And then
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: the you know, they they stayed there. And then as
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: they started to become exporters, those people were still there
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: and they accessed the Chinese labor market and that's why
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: the center of it was there. And then it gradually
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: moved all into China, and we moved into China, but
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: we would bring kyotes along. You know, even though we
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: knew we would not sell them, you know, and we
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: would literally just beg people, you know, to take it,
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: try it, you know, you know if you could you know,
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: possibly use use these in any way, and they just
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: you know, like a raccoon, you know, they could. It
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: wasn't the longest haired item, and they could. It was
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: cheap enough. They could use it, you know, for an
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: inner liner, they could use it for this. They just
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: could figure out ways to use it. And it was
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: just like the coyote. They just you know, it was
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: just something they couldn't use. They couldn't figure out how
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: to use it. And then you know.
• 53:28
  Speaker 10: Canada that time you said what it was like ten
• 53:30
  Speaker 10: to fifteen.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, ten to fifteen dollars was yeah, if you could
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: sell it, you know, you just you couldn't. They couldn't
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: even get them to comprehend it even hardly. And then
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: just in the early two thousands it just kind of started.
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: Canada Goose started and yeah, they they it was amazing
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: what they did for the business.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, now what's wrong with that beaver?
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Well, this beaver that you have in the back of
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: your chair, you know, really most beaver are historically in
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: the country have been used, you know, to make felt.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that that should have been used for that.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: That should have been used to do that because they
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: know not necessarily well, that's one reason, but because they
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: just use the underwall. And beavers, even though they last forever,
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: they're they're a very strong animal. If you shear them,
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: they don't stay clean. So in other words, if you
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: get rid of this guard here and you have a
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: sheared beaver, they get dirty very quickly. And if you
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: have a long haired one, they get a bit dishoveled
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: like this one is. Their hair goes kind of every
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: other way. They're they're they're a beaver. It's uh, it
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: really looks unless you really can take care of it
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: and don't use it very much. It really is. The
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: best use is in a hat or trade.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I thought you're going to criticize something. It's fine,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: you should talk.
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: No, it's a it's a It was just when he
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: walked in and he said, he said, it's a real
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: shame to see that beaver just sitting on the back
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: of the chair. It should be a hat.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: It should be a hat somewhere.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: Do you have a hat or not? Do you have
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: a beaver hat. Okay, good, not a cowboy. Oh that's
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: what I mean. A cowboy yet, dudelet's we can probably
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: fix you up.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, this this, it's out of control around here. The
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: other day I saw I'm not kidding you there to
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: as see a guy in the airport. I'm not joking.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: There's a guy in the Bosman airport that has spurs on.
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: Gotten through TSA.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: He's in the baggage area wearing spur Yeah no, no,
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: he did. He did gone through TSA spurs on like
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: he's like just plane needs a speed up start spurring
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: his seat. Now that he's got his leather work gloves
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: folded into his belt, it's like the playing cowboy thing
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: around here is out.
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: Like fake cowboy.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, he probably had tattoos just you know
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: the other night when we landed, when we landed there night, Yeah,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: some kids stand there, looks like howardy duty. He's got
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: a big old cowboy hat tipped down the back of
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: his head, big old belt buckle, and he's picking up
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: a bunch of terists. Oh yeah yeah, and he's like
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: a shuttle driver, like a shuttle driver for a dude ranch.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: But it looks like he just got his ass kick
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: at a at a rodeo fight. It's out of control.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: But that's the thing I want to bring up is
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: that's like driving beaver market right now. Can you talk
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: about that like wolfelt yeah, cow and cowboy hats.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's it's the.
• 56:16
  Speaker 6: Flat brim hats, hats that all the gals wear these days.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like the Saturday Live my big dumb hat
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Bozeman hats.
• 56:22
  Speaker 6: I haven't seen that, but yeah.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: They did any thing about those hats called my big
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: dumb hat. Oh, it's about girls and those huge hats.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So the I mean, the cowboy hat craze is
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, it's you know, it's it's huge for
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: the business.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, beaver I'm not knocking on it.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: I mean and once again that that same metric, you know,
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, beaver prices have probably quadrupled in the last
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: you know, five years because of it.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: And that's all going like, how do you make that stuff?
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Do they shed? Do they shred the whole thing?
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: No, what they do is they eliminate the leather. That's
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: the first thing that happens. They turned the leather into spaghetti.
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: So it's just you know, they make they bite it
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: off with this machine, and and you're left the skin
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: almost looks like it's still there. The fur is still there,
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: and you could just put your hand right through it
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: because the leather is gone. Okay, then it and and
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: but before that happens, while it's still on the animal,
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: acid is dripped on it.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: Okay, not while it's on the animal, you know.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: Well I'm sorry, Well it's still while it's still on
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: the skin. Thanks for correcting me. I appreciate that. While
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: it's still on the skin, acid is dripped on it.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Used to be mercury, right, you know the mad Hatter was. Yeah,
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: that's why they called it. That's why that's where the
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: mad Head is from. Yeah, from they used to use
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: mercury carroting. Yeah, yeah, exactly, this guy he's talking about. Yeah,
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: because it turns it orange a little bit, and it
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: still turns it orange a little bit.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: When you the old days, like let's say the Mountain
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Man era. Yeah, they would take that beaver hide and
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: put mercury on it.
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it wouldn't have been done out here. You know.
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: They took the beaver's you know, to Saint Louis or wherever,
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: and they were shipped to Europe and then it was
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: you know car had.
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: That was making abe Lincoln heads.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: Even even back in the day, they would have had
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: they would have had to have done it because because
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: the beaver hair is actually too good, it's too smooth.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: So what they do by putting that acid or it
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: used to be mercury, is they actually injure, injure the
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: hair and give it split ends, it breaks down the
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: carratin give it gives it a very good The only
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: reason he knows why am I on this show.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: He knows this because me and him are We work
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: on this thing called me Eater's American History. The next
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: volume is on the beaver trade.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: Oh really, it just.
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: Blew my cover. I was a really impressing guy here.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: So like in the nineteen forties, they they developed formulas
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: for using acid, and then now they use acid. Then
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: then this all of this hair goes through a big
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: machine where it's blown. They call it blowing, and all
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: the heavy stuff falls out, maybe little pieces of leather
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: or the guard hair. So all the guard hair falls out.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: They don't want the guard hair.
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: The guard hair is worthless. It it's it's thrown away,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: and then so and then this stuff. So wow, I'll
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: be in a factory next month. You can come with me, Okay,
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: I'd love to do that. So then so then once
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: once it's blown, once you're reduced to just that underwall,
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: it is, it's you know, it's super clean, it's free
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: of grease, and you can take that material. Okay, And
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: this is the most primitive form of material that there is.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: You know, this was that was the very first material
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: ever used. Okay, as is people felting. They would just
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: Indians or whoever, would just rub you know, hair together
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: until it felt it. And when you take that stuff,
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: it's such it's so done so precisely that within literally seconds,
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: if you take a chunk of it, you can make felt.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: It turns into a piece of felt.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: All right. You know what's that kind of school that
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: it's like, you know, people send their kids a certain
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: kind of schools that they don't want them going to
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: public school, opposite kind of the opposite kind of person
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: that would send their kid to military school sends them.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Is it Monassory?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah yeah.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Aren't they real big into felting? They give kids felting projects.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: I think that's like making thing like arts and crafts
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: with colored felt. Yeah, but they're not like making felt.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: They're making things with felt. I think, oh, I've spent a.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: Lot of time.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: So then that so then the hat is they they
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: take that that all that fur, that's that cut fur,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: and they pour it over a conic form that's maybe
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: a foot and a half twenty four inches tall.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, literally just a big cone.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: Okay, it's it's it's just and the and the cone
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: has a bunch of air holes in it so the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: air can suck out so that it goes uniformly all
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: over this cone.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: Okay dry or what.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: Uh, fairly dry, and then a ton of water just
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: goes over it and starts that felting process, and that
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: fur comes out of that. It just comes out in
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: this big cone.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: And that's the start of a cowboy hat. It's just
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: what it's just a massive cone, that's all it is.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: So they don't start by making a big sheet of felt.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: Absolutely not. It's in a it's in a cone form
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: and it's and it's it's felt, and you can grab that.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: And then they start they put it on and they
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: start pressing it together and going like that and they
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: turn it so it doesn't get a fold that stays
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: in it, you know, because they want to keep turning
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: it so that it stays like that, and it just
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: keeps getting you know, uh more. I don't know what
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: the word would be. You know that it kind of
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: locked together, you know. And then they and then they start,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: depending on you know, the order that they have or
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: whatever they you know, put it into a form, right,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: and sometimes that the the they're called bodies once they're
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: made into those cones. And sometimes they just sell the body.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: So there's three there's three primary deals in the hat business.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: It's it's for cutting, okay, So those that would be
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: a separate factory. You cut the fur, you tree, you
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: carried it, and you cut it, and you may sell
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: that fur, or you may send it on to your
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: own factory, which would be the body making. So then
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: you make a body just this cone, okay, and then
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: that cone you you have to send that on to
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: another factory, and that's called a finishing factory. And that's
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: like you know, stets and resist all, you know, all
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: the the hat companies here in the States, they would
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: buy a lot of times hat bodies, you know, and
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: then they they have all these these forms you know
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: for cowboy hats are it could be easily one hundred
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: years old that they use to form form the finished
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: hats out.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: Of I don't want you to think I'm dense, but
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: I just want to make sure I understand this correctly.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: Each hat, each cowboy hat, each stats and hat is
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: started out with handfuls of beaver.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: Fur, handfuls of beaver fur.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: That will only ever belong to that hat.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: Which will only belong to that hat. Well, I mean,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: if it's if it's a poorer quality one, it's mixed
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: with more hair or rabbit.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: But if it's say, yeah, you when you take that fur,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: you're forming a hat. You're not forming a fabric.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: No, you're you're forming a fabric that's in a cone
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: shape for that hat.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: It's not it's not a flat fabric. Did you know that, Randall?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: And before you get to the coney you make bats.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I believe, no, the.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: This was so validing to me.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so just now, no, No, it's it's it's usually
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: it's the fur is sort of uh uh rained over
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: this this form that has air air sucking little tiny
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: holes in it and it's sucking all the time so
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: that it gets covered just perfectly. I mean, it looks
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: like snow, like if they're using you know, bleach beaver,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: it looks like it looks like snow. We bleach beaver
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: at our place for it. So if you see it,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: bleach beaver has pretty well it's come from our place.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, from now on, when I see a hat cowboy
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: hat at the airport or whatever, as you think to myself,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: are you sure? Are you sure you're cowboy? No, I'm
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: gonna start thinking that's a will have processed to form
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: that hat.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: Ask him how many X it is, and you'll find
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: it's it's not totally industry wide. So some some places,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: you know, one hundred X maybe one hundred percent beaver
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: kind of originally maybe it was, but some people, you know,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: they kind of there was a little bit of X
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: inflation and uh, some companies they have a thousand X.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's there one hundred percent. You know, it's just
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: different companies use different standards, so you can't always be sure,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: but you know, you can.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: Feel it walk through like we're idiots. What the xes mean?
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: That's the X means? I'm sorry, it's uh, it's it's
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: what percentage. You know, your your hat is beaver, so
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: you know, uh yeah, so a poorer quality one would
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: be maybe a ten x and it would be mostly
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: hair or mostly rabbit, no kid, Yeah.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: What's the most common other fur that's supplemented in there?
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: I would I would say wool is the most common.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: And if you if you feel a wool hat, okay,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: they use like a lamb's wool about it. I don't know,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: maybe sixteen to seventeen micron that they use. And you know,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: you look at that hat and you're like, wow, that
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: is the finest cowboy hat you've ever seen. And you
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: take a beaver hat after that, it's it's you can't
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: believe how much better it is. You think that wool
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: hat is just unbelievable characteristic. Does it get Well, it's
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: just a better hand. We use the word hand in
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: the wool business, but it's just it's smoother. It's just
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: it just feels so incredible. The difference between and you know,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: some beaver is right around twelve microns and you know
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: the wool they're using it's around seventeen, so it's only
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: five microns difference, maybe six microns difference, but it's it's
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: just one hundred percent beaver hat. It's just an unbelievable
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: you know, you when you have one that's one hundred
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: percent beaver, ninety percent beaver, it's you know it.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: I mean it's so that's a one hundred X hat.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: Well, it's it's different companies used different you know, there's
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: a little bit of inflation over the years with the X.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: What do you can you lay out the price difference?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: I mean it's probably hard brands, but yeah, to buy
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent beaver, you're looking at how like what
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: sort of percent increase over a boat?
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: I would say, you know, you could be at ten times.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: You know, you could be at eighteen hundred dollars hat
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: versus one hundred and eighty for maybe a ten X.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: But I don't even know if you can really buy
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: a ten X for one hundred and eighty, So maybe
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: it's less difference, you know. I think, like a really
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: good hat, you know, is fifteen to two, but you
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: could you know, you can spend more than that, so
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: somewhere between five and ten times, you know, But then
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: you know, then you have wool hats, then you have
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: one hundred percent you know, hair hats or rabbit hats,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: and you know, it's not my business, so but I
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: you know, I know a little bit, you know, a
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: rabbit hat, but it's you know, it's a rabbit fur.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not ears.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: But it's a nice you know, it's got a nice
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: it's got a nice feel as well.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, Hey, I notice you got a you
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: got yourself a blaze orange wedding ring.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: He's letting the world know.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to keep them away.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the cameras will pick up.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: I'm taking he's having problems. He's got he's like, I
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: need to get a shiney your wedding ring.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: No problem.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 8: I notice I noticed on your website you list seventeen
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 8: different pelts here that you offer, and they're all on brand.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 8: Like it all it's to be expected, except for one
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 8: of them, ringtail. What do you do with ringtails?
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: Ah, it's it's a lot of novelty, you know, it's
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: not a it's such a.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 8: Small and like what does that get turned into?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: Though?
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: People hanging on their wall mostly that's it. But it
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: is a it is a beautiful item. I mean, it's
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: a it's it's it looks like a muskrat belly. It's
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: it's got that. You know. In the fur business, a
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: good color is always blue, okay, And and a ringtail
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: is really blue. You know, the fur underneath is really
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: a color of blue, like a like a muskrat belly
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: is blue. That's always here, like you know, like a raccoon.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: When it's a good color, it has sort of a
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: shade of blue to a good fur buyer, even even
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: a really good kayak, you know, you you know, we
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: see like kind of blue in that because it's got
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: that that clear, clear look to it. But that's a
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: ringtails does have a beautiful color.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 8: And those come in from trappers or hunters.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: Or trappers trappers. I mean, it's it's a small item
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: in the Southwest.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 8: What what are like the other most exotic furs that
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 8: you deal with?
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean price wise. You know, Western bobcats
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: are certainly, you know, the most exotic, you know, I mean,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: I mean I'm a fur buyer, so to us, exotic
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: means price. You know, that would be by far. You know,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: Western bobcat could be one thousand dollars right now.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 9: Kirks up. He's like, I'm gonna.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: I don't sell anything about interest in that, right, right?
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: What do possums go?
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 4: For?
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: Possums?
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: What are they used for?
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 7: Uh?
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: They they make innerliners in China out of them, They
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: make trims out of them. You know, we die crazy color.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: But when you have a mank at that you can
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: buy a ranch mank for you know, twenty five dollars,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: it's tough to get you know, eight bucks for a possum.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: And the problem there is, you know, we send it
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: to Cambodia and spend you know, a couple of bucks
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: on shipping and you know three four dollars on dressing.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: You know, you just you can't. It's not a real
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: viable you know item.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: And the skunk trade is novelty it.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: Is the tails are used in you know, the acidics
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: use them some and uh what for hats tails? Yeah?
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 10: Scroll down on your talking points document. I put a
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 10: photo in there of a strim, is that right, guy?
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: How do you throw skunk into that?
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: You know that's there's some magic to do with that.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: I you know, that's that's a real secret of trade.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so a Hasidic Jews hat might have.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: It might Yeah, surprised you didn't know that, Steve, They
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: use a lot of tails.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 8: Say well, I mean you're subject matter expert in multiple
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 8: things going on there.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: What reason of the country has the best coyotes?
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: Uh, you know, like like here is a is a
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: great coyote, you know, and the other thing is like
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: as a fur buyer, you know, we always we always
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: look at quantity, you know, so we put quantity and
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: quality together. And uh, you know the Dakotas, you know,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: maybe have a few more trappers. That's and it's it's
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: a really good, good coyote. But yeah, and then you
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: know across the border into Canada is a fantastic coyote.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: You know, just this big the big circle, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: you know, Manitoba.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: That circle is by far the best.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 6: Now, if someone sells like a black coyote, yeah, it's it's.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: Just it's just novelty, which is not you know, we're
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: not big novelty people. You know, we're we're the fur
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: trade and we do sell some novelty stuff, but that's
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: not really what we're we're doing.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: Gotcha, why is a bobcat Let's I'm a guy in
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: Texas and you say, bobcast are a thousand bucks, And
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: I'm down in Texas where it's bobcast season year round,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: there's no bag limit. And I go and my ears
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: perk up. And I'm in South South Texas and my
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: ears perk up, and I'm like, holy cow, is it
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: gonna be a nice Christmas around my house? Why should
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: I not get excited?
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: Because it's it's it's it's almost to the point where
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: it's not even the same animal as far as the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: fur trade goes. It's like a coyout from you know,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: it's like a it's like a kyout from Bozemans versus
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: a kyout from you know, Georgia.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: But put it like like explain it like radiots. Okay,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: they got spots.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. First first thing is, you know when I talk
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: about blue type, I mean a cat is an item
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: that you really want, you know, you want that white
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: to be white, you want that black to be black,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: and you want some fur quality, which you know, we're
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: far enough north here, we got some length of the fur.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: You get to you know, you get to Texas and
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: they are you know, a tenth of the length of
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: at least a fifth of the length of the for
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: they're twenty percent. You know. You know, a cat from
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: here is is darn near as heavy as this coyote,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: you know. And you know the belly on a cat,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: you know, is so important. You know, the back has
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: just sold off as scrap, you know what, and sure
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: sure is not using the garment, and so they when
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: you when you have.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think you're talking about Kyle bobka Boby.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I got lost. Yeah, So when you go when
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: you have a cat, which we don't have one here,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: it's so important, you know, the width of the belly,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: and around here, the width of the belly is typically
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: very big. You know, a Texas belly could be three inches,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: you know. But in some of the areas, in the
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: high countries of Texas, though, they you know, they still
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: get a pretty u a pretty nice cat, so they
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: have the I mean, I would say in Texas, you
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: could get the stuff over by Louisiana could be worth
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: you know, thirty bucks, and you could get something in
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: the high country in the western part of uh Texas
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: that could be worth five hundred in the same state. Yeah,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, of course, Texas is very big state. You know,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: Montana would not be like that because uh, it's it's
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: a it's a pretty mymnduenous bobcat this whole area.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: What's the current state of the white tailed deer skin trade.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: It's a little better than it was. I would say
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: it's actually a little healthy. The tail business is is
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: very good and the high business, you know tail business. Yeah,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: they use the fly tying and for uh Hasidic hats too,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: they yeah.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Can I can? I Uh? I want to walk you
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: back to a memory I have and then you maybe
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: you can comment on that memory. I used to sell
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: for at the Ravan of Fur Auction in Michigan.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: Oh really, no, kidd, Yeah, I buy Michigan. I bought
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: for years. It's my area.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: That was our local. Yeah sure so, uh, Michigan Travers Association,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: we're put on this fur auction at Ravan Michigan stuff.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: And and they would when you're when you're doing it,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: just to give you, I'm not I'm gonna tell you
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: something you already know about, gonna tell the list. There's like,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: let's say you have muskrats. Okay, you're gonna break your
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: muskrats out into four or five categories. Kits Medium's large,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: you know three damage. Okay, so four categories maybe yeah, yeah,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: I mean large, medium, kits and smalls maybe kits, smalls damages.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: But either way the buyer buys. The buyer is buying
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: pretty specifically. Okay, when you do mink, you might have
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: like you sell large males together and then right, and
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of specificity. So they're buying like things
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: that are similar to each other every time it comes through.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: Deer hides would be that how they ran it in
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: the eighties and early nineties. Deer hides be the first
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: deer hide that went on the table. They would bid
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: on that white tailed.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: Deer skin, and that's what all of them would bring.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: And whatever that hide bought, they entered into a contract
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: to buy all deer skins at that price, so they
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: couldn't look at how full of holes it was, how
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: big it was, whether the guy had taken care of
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: it or not. Yeah, guys would be out in the
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: parking lot. I saw it with my own eyes. Guys
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: would be out in the parking lot taking large deer skins,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: cutting them across the waist, rolling them up and selling
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: them as too. Because the guys weren't able to grade it.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, that's not really the way it is.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know that way it was. Yeah, that's
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: I mean the guy you're trying to call me a liar. No,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: I'm just saying that, But I mean that's that's the
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: guys getting hose. Then you know that felt, I mean I.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: Felt it was a disservice to white tailed deer skins.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: But you know, a pretty much an adult deer. Okay, fine,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: you get the occasional buck that's much bigger, but you know,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: adult deer don't have a lot of variation in size.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: As long as it's not a fawn. You know, it's
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: typically one price. Michigan happens to be probably the best
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: deer hide in America. What Yeah, yeah, best deer eyes
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: because they aren't affected by they don't must not have
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: much multiple rose air, and they don't have scratch. So
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: it's it's a really right.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: I didn't grow up around a lot of that.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: It all lives at a place called Doug Durrance Farm.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you're kind of a Nick, you're kind of
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: a modern day Nick Adams lives there.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't have a lot of that growing up.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: Right, So that. Yeah, they're deer hides, degrades of deer skins. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: Scratches are the biggest thing on a deer. Southern deer,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: you know, even though some places in the in the South,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: the deer hiyes are you know, decent size, they've got
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: a lot more scratches.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, scratches on the leather, scratches on the hair, like
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: the hair is damaged.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: No, the hair is all, you know, disregarded, it's all
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: taken off. You know, hair doesn't mean anything. But they
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: have less hair as well, on those southerns so they
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: have less protection. And but yeah, Michigan hide is like
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: if Wisconsin is you know, you know, seven bucks, Michigan
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: is nine. You know, it's like, what do.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: They I want to ask you what they're doing with it?
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: What what deer skins go for? Now? What they used
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: white tailed deerskins for today? But this girl who went
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: to high school with she later married this dude who
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: was from Argentina. That's not true. Whereada hell he's from
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: He bought cattle in Patagonia. He was a buyer for
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: like Mercedes, Benz and Cadillac and shit, he bought leather
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: for leather interiors. He went where he bought leather. He
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: would go to places where they did not use barbed wire. Yeah.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: See, that's that's the same thing.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: That's why he was always buying. He was always buying
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: cattle hides, cow hides down in Patagonia because they weren't
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: because you couldn't get a big enough piece. They wanted
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: to use whole single pieces. Yeah, barbed wires and brands
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: on interiors. And he would go to these places. He's like,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: I buy, I basically go where there's no barberarre because
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to find perfect But you know.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: I mean like the deer skin business. I mean, you
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: brought it up and you want to know about the leather.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: I mean the thing that's hurt the deer skin business.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, really, we're at below prices of ten years ago,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: when we were much below just a few years ago.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, overall, dear skin prices are down there. They're
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: they're up a bit from where they were maybe a
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: couple of years ago, but overall, certainly adjusted for inflation
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: from twenty years ago, they're much cheaper. And you know,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: the overall reason is something I touched on before, and like,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: you know, even twenty years ago, all tennis shoes were
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: made of leather, and today you can't hardly find a
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: pair of tennis shoes just made a leather. And so
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: the cowskin business is horrible.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: The cowskin business is terrible.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because the sneakers, it's sure, and that's that's a deal.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: We're large manufacturers. You know. People looked at it, and
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: Nike looked at it and said, hey, you know we
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: want to send, we want to save you know, you know,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: five bucks a pair of shoes or whatever. And you know,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: the price of you know, petroleum to go into their
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: shoe just doesn't change. So we're going to use that
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: no matter how fashionable they get. So yeah, when the
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: Chinese consumer kind of came into the market on all
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: these things, it sort of changed the game because now
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: we were you know, if something became popular, became popular
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: with you know a billion and a half people, well
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: you know, it's gonna.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: Take the price with it.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: You know. We saw in the early two thousands, we
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: saw all those commodities go crazy. You know, leather, cotton,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: you know, wool, everything went nuts. You know, when the
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: Chinese consumer entered, and then the reaction was to hey,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: let's you know, let's just not use those products. So
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: they've so there's been a huge change in what's what's
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: being you know, what the consumer can actually buy.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: So what would like what products? If you're a dude
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: out wand and around, what products might you look at?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: And you might be looking at a white tailed deer
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: skin killed by an American?
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: I would say mostly glove business. You know, it's mostly gloves, and.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 8: A lot of places offer that trade, like you can
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 8: trade in you know, ranch gloves. You get ranch gloves for.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one deer, we do it. We do it.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: When I yeah, when I was a kid, they would
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: do it. And it was the kind where the scene
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: was on the outside, so you didn't have good dexterity
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: and when you when your hand got wet and you
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: pulled out, most insulation was stuck to your.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 4: Hands, right right.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 3: Well, we tried to have a little better glove now,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: but but yeah, it was. It was to the point
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: you couldn't even trade a pair of gloves a couple
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: of years ago. It was so cheap.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: So who are you selling deer skins to?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: We sell it all to Asia, Yeah, tanned or just no, no, no,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: everything's just salted. Do you send it with the hair
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: on it? We sent it with the hair on it.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: As a matter of fact. You know that ship that
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: got well, okay, so we had we had a load
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: delivered to that ship like a day before the cutoff day.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: So we were like one of the last containers getting
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: on that ship. The day after that ship, I don't know,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know the story. The ship in Baltimore that
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: hit the bridge.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: Oh that ship, that ship hides on it.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, the next day somebody sends me a picture
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: of a TikTok with deer hides floating around with Baltimore.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: Had my brother lives in Baltimore, and you like went
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: down there and you know, and we were and he
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: was my brother is the one that got the deer
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: heides booked on that load. And we were sure that
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: it was ours because we thought, hey, they only lost
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: two two containers actually fell off the boat and they
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: lost the stuff and we have thought for sure it
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: was ours. And we just found out like three weeks
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: ago that it wasn't ours, So our, it was somebody else.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: Had deer hides that lost them on that on that ship.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: White deer skins.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: They were Canadian. I think.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 8: Did your ship make it? It is, it's still city.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: It got it got re routed and it's going right now.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: So good luck. Yeah, hopefully they're still they're still fresh enough.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you do. I highly recommend to you.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: What do you highly recommend?
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: There's a thing called me Eater's American History, The Long Hunters. Okay,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: hear me out, Okay, The Long Hunters. It covers Colonial
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: America from seventeen sixty three to seventeen seventy five, and
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: it's the story of the white tailed deer skin trade.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: At a point in that audio original, which features the
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: impeccable research of doctor I'm impressed.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 5: I will say that I'm serious. We have we have
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 5: turned up an air today on the bats thing.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: So yeah, we get into not just deer skins being sold,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: American deer skins being sold in England. We covered just
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: the ones that were seized by pirates and or privateers
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: and sold as bounty as loot, and we have a
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: shipwreck and a shipwreck.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 5: Wow, and those deer skins were covered three years later.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like still the recording. There's reporting in the
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: seventeen hundreds, there's reporting of a shipwreck. Tell the story, Ranel.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 5: It was a it was a ship going to Liverpool
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 5: that had stopped in Ireland and then wrecked in the
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: mouth of a river. And you know there's newspaper articles
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 5: describing the cargo that was lost. And then three years later,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 5: if you're reading these auction announcements for cargoes, come over.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 5: There's one that says, you know, there's twenty two hundred
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 5: or so damn badly damaged deer skins recovery from the
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 5: containership XYZ that had sunk in the mouth of the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 5: whatever river three years prior. So, I mean just almost
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 5: straight out of the headlines. And fifty years later.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: Do you know you ever heard of what you know
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: what a privateer is? No, it's a state sanctioned pirate. Okay,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: So picture like, let's say we hate who do we
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: hate the most? I ran Okay Iron North Dakota. Right now,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: I'm not like, this isn't like earth breaking, this isn't
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: like news show material. But we're a little you know,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: things are a little hot right now between us and around.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: Let's say our government said to a pirate type person,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: We're like, hey, you can be a pirate basically under
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: license from US. Well, the Hooties state sanctioned. They're like
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: state sanctioned pirates. There's state sanctions that they sort of
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: operate as a criminal enterprise under the flag of Iran,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: under the support and ban of Iran, armed by Iran.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: So these privateers, English privateer England would send out these
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: pirates to seize white tailed deer skins leaving where South Carolina.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 5: Uh, the English would be seizing skins coming typically out
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: of New Orleans.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they wouldn't want to seize their own whether.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 5: It Yeah, yeah, like French French and yeah, French and
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 5: Spanish ships sort of coming out of New Orleans. And
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 5: then there are also some Spanish ships coming out of Florida.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 5: But yeah, wece ver And then you'd read that, uh,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 5: an English privateer had seized several thousand deer skins from
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 5: a French privateer that had previously seized them from an
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 5: English merchant vessel. And so there's this back and forth
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 5: and then it's like you can view these goods next
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 5: Sunday down at the dock.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you one last thing about this thing.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 2: You got to read listen to. Uh, you've attended many
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: for auctions. Yeah, I have.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they had this habit of not a habit.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: They had a thing like you'd light a candle at
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: a auction. You'd light a candle and bidding added when
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: the candle went out, which leaves a certain level of uncertainty.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: So if you're thinking, like you're sitting on a good
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: bid in your pocket, right and you're like, well, I'm
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: gonna wait for the last second, there's like an uncertainty
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: about when that candle flicker out, and it makes you
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: get to the point.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 8: Right, you've seen this done?
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's in. It's in media's American history, the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: long Hunters.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: We should light one of them in here.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 8: How how easily can you tell the difference between a
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 8: wild mink and a ranch mink?
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: Great question, it's not even it's it's just natural. I
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: mean you could see.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 8: If I was holding it right here, could you tell
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 8: the difference between absolutely?
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And then would.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 9: It be something that we could easily tell it?
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: Just that within within ten minutes I could show show
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: you the difference. First thing is that wild mink is
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: going to be get Oh, it's going to be half
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 3: as big. So that's that's one thing that's going to
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: tell you and that and the fur is going to
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: be twice as long on a on a wild mink. Okay,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: you know, h ranch make have been bred over the
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 3: years to get shorter and shorter to look real velvety.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: You know, they don't like, for instance, this beaver. The
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 3: reason a lot of the reason why it looks kind
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: of dishoveled is because you know, it's just its hair is,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: you know, two inches long. But if you have a
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 3: if you have a mink that you know, is really short,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: like a crew cut on a guy, you know, I mean,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: it's going to stick up all the time. So it looks,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: you know, really uniform. And uh and and and the
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: whole animal looks really uniform. Even the belly looks almost
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: identical to the back, whereas a wild mink it gets
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: a little shorter. On the belly, it gets noticeably shorter.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: And yeah, just in a course, colors, you know, ranch
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: mak are probably thirty colors. You know, you can have purples,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: you know what.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: Really surely sure see that turkey decoy off your left shoulder,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: I see it. Yeah, that was made by a guy
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: named Dave Smith. Dave Smith was showing me pictures of
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: these mink he was catching in Oregon. I mean they're
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: like they look like small otters, right, yeah, you know
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: he feels that he was catching escapees.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if there was a ranch around there, it had
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: you know, we buy we buy a lot of them
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: on the trucks that have been escapees because you know
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: Wisconsin and oh yeah, yeah, immediately you can tell yeah
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: that is big. Yeah, yeah, you'd be able to tell.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, every once in a while you have a
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: ranch mank and you know, you handle you know, thousands
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: and thousands, and you're like, you know, it's just a
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: it's just a wild maker is it's a ranch mak.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: But basically it's just very easy to tell the difference.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: So I mean, like like a ranch fox. You know
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 3: the difference you guys have that fox here, A ranch
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: fox is you know three times the size of this
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: it is. Oh yeah, it's bigger than a coyot wow,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, yeah bigger.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: Than Why what?
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 8: Like why do they want them that big?
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: Just because it's you know, easier to work with. You know,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: they're making trims out of most of the foxes, and
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: you know it's you know, if you're gonna if you're
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: gonna skin an animal, if you're gonna scrape it, you're
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: gonna try it, you're gonna tan it. You'd much rather
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: do one instead of two. You know, it's it's much cheaper.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 8: So fox and mink. What else do you buy that
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 8: comes from a rancher?
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: Oh there's uh Chinese or fin raccoon, but it's really
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: yeah sure, yeah, it looks like it's a little bit
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: like it's really got the fur of a coyote, kind
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: of a little darker.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: They're raising raccoons.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, sure, head there's no ranch coyotes.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 3: Uh no, no ranch that would.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: This is a huge ranchers, your ranch and what it's a.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 5: Big change in direction here. But so this is a
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 5: family business. Yes, Uh when when you were growing up,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: I mean, were you trapping things? I mean I'm sort
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 5: of wondering, like what parts of the process you've had
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 5: your hands in. I like it, did you ever just
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 5: learn to trap so that you knew that part of
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 5: the business.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 3: I trapped as a kid because muskrats were worth a
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: lot of money. Yeah, you know, I mean my dad
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: couldn't help me because you know, it was in the
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: middle of first season and you know, it was craziness, sure,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: and but I bought fur. I think I went on
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: a truck. I had to have a driver. I think
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: I was either fourteen or fifteen when I first went
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: out a truck, out out.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: Buying to buy for at fourteen.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had my own I had my
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 3: own route I had, I had had a driver and
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: we go around to the trappers and and buy fur.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: And then I bought fur until my first couple of
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: years of college. And then you know, it was kind
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: of eighty seven and the kind of big crash then
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: kind of the European crash, and then I finished my
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: degree and came back in like ninety one.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: What all degrees did you get?
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: I don't want to. I don't want to say, because
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: we were, you know, knocking.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: The but.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: I thought we Yeah, I have a degree in economics.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Randall's got a PhD Oh, yeah, they can.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: Tell I don't need one.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 5: No one really does.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: What was going on?
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: What year were you born?
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: I was born in sixty six. My friend Stu Miller,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: who's a trapper, he uh, he said, every generation has
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: its own fur boom, meaning he calls his fur boom,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: which is the twenty thirteen fur boom.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 4: H he calls it the mini fur boom.
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: And when he says the mini fur boom, he's referring
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: to like the big fur boom, which was seventy eight
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 2: to eighty two, and then there was another big fur
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: boom in the roaring twenties or you know, you probably
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: know them all. I'm curious about, like what causes that
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: to happen, But let's focus on Let's focus on the two,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: like what happened in nineteen seven and what happened in
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: twenty thirteen.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess in seventy eight, you know, it was
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: kind of the European fur boom, and you know the
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: Europeans it was very fashionable to wear wild fur, and
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: you know, you just it was it was it was
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: even unbelievable just to be in the business, you know,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, I you know, our factory went from just
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: a few workers to seventy, like you know, overnight. It
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: was just unbelievable. Raccoon prices went from a few bucks
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: to thirty dollars, you know, overnight, and you know, everybody
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: was a trapper, and you know, it was very fashionable
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: and for you know, for and then that that kind
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: of boom kind of lasted a while because you know,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: it kind of moved around. It went from you know,
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: started in Germany, went to Italy, Spain, you know, and
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: even ended up you know, in America. We were wearing
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: you know, beaver coats in the in the eighties and
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: and raccoon coats, and it was a great thing for
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: that generation because you know, my parents' generation was raised,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: you know, in the depression, and you know, the retailers,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: you know, their first thing to sell a coat was, hey,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: this won't last for two seasons. This will last for
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: two generations, you know, and my parents' generation they love that,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: you know, and so that was the that was the
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: fur boom of the seventies. It was it was high fashion,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: and then it was ended, not because it went out
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: of fashion, but because the animal rights activists, mostly in Europe,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: you know, they really really killed it in Europe, and
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: then you know, kind of lost lost fashion ability, and
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: you know my generation kind of you know, rejected it
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: for the opposite reason, or yeah, for the opposite reason,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: and that you know, my generation didn't grow up in
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: the depression, and we didn't want something that would last
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: for you know, two generations. You know, we wanted something
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: that would last for you know, a season. We want
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: to buy a new car every year and or every
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: couple of years. And so the first thing that a
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: retailer would say to my generation was, hey, you know,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: I'll store that coade for you for the next twenty years,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: you know, and charge one hundred and fifty bucks every year.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 3: Retailer was more interested in storing the coat than he
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: was selling it. And so the retailer in the first
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: business all over the western world did the exact opposite
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: of what they should have done to sell, you know.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: Fer to my generation that I think that has a
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: lot to do. You know what ended it? They didn't
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 3: keep it going because my generation wants to buy it
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 3: at Kia. You know, we don't want to buy, you know,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 3: stuff that we have to you know, have around for
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 3: a while, so you know, and it's a perfect thing
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: to throw away, you know, it you know, goes in
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: a landfill, it'll disappear, you know. But that's not the
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 3: way my generation looked at it. We looked at it
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: as something we had to keep, like grandma did, you know,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: forever and then give it to her, Give it to
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: her granddaughter, but it was. It was an amazing times.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: And you know for the next you know, fifteen years
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: or whatever when you bought fur, you know, you listen
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 3: to that. Let me tell you. I mean, every trapper
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: you know would come to the truck and say, you know,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: you know, you remember when you know, red fox were
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: ninety dollars and you know, and you know, do you
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: ever think it's going to be like that again? And
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 3: you know, I wouldn't say that. The next boom, you know,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: in thirteen or twelve, ten eleven, uh, was you know,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: a mini fur boom. I mean it was a massive
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: fur boom and it consumed a lot more mink. You know,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: mink production I think peaked in eighty seven, maybe thirty
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 3: million mink or something like that, you know, and uh,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: you know, and in the second peak, you know, the
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: ranch mink peaked at you know, maybe one hundred and
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: thirty million.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: Who was buying it then?
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 3: Who was wearing it in in the first boom or
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 3: the second second In the second boom, it was a
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 3: lot of Chinese and Russia, Ukraine, but yeah, a lot
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 3: of a lot of Chinese, a lot of Russians. Russia
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: was you know, huge in the in the in that boom.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: So all these tariffs and stuff that we got, all
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: this punitive stuff we have against Russia right now has
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: got to be hurting that whole business.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 3: It's certainly. I mean just the fact that I mean
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: they can go through China to buy stuff. You know,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: it's not that big a deal, but they just don't
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 3: have any money, you know, the rank and file people,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 3: and you know the currency. You know, when we started
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: really selling to the Russians, I think we were right
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 3: at about eight or nine to one to the ruble,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: and you know, I think right now we're right at
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 3: one hundred. So it makes it really difficult. You know,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 3: it's u almost ten times the price because their currency
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 3: is worth so much less. Even if we had never
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 3: changed the price of the fur, so it would be
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: it would cost them ten times as much just because
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: their currency is dropped that much. So, I mean, when
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: they invaded, I think it. I think I had a
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 3: customer that had some money in Russia, some dollars. I
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 3: think at one point he on the black market. He
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: traded him at like one sixty or one seventy. You know,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: I mean it's just worthless, you know. So but it's
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: kind of settled out around one hundred or so.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: Does your family still go out as grown wald for
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: and buy for from people in parking lots and stuff.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I still do it myself. I go all I
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 3: do mostly Wisconsin. I've done Michigan most of my life.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 3: I did it this year up, I do Illinois. Yeah,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 3: I go in a truck. My brother does it. Bryce,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: the guy that I work with, does it. Terry does it.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: We we have my brother goes. He lives in Baltimore.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: He does the hole east coast New York state. Yeah,
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 3: he used to live in Berlin. Used to sell a
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: lot to Russia for US. But yeah, Gary buys all
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: of the southeast and northeast and we go through Missouri.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: And then we have an office in Winnipeg too, And Bryce,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 3: guy that I work with, he runs that office and
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: he buys all through Canada.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 8: How have.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 5: Like, how has the American trapper changed in your lifetime
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 5: the guys that you were selling or buying from years
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 5: ago versus like today and maybe what changes have you seen.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So we had a guy in our town, Forrest,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 3: and that trapped and he was one of the bigger
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 3: trappers that we had caught probably, and back in the day,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 3: guys that were big trappers didn't catch what big trappers
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: do today. They just didn't have the stuff that people
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: have developed over the years to really make a trapper
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 3: super efficient. Maybe he was a five hundred muskrat guy,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: you know, which was kind of big back in the day.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 3: And you know, my dad told me that, you know,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: he there was nobody in town besides my dad that
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 3: knew that he even caught him. You know, he even
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 3: hit his car, you know when he when he would
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 3: go to the creeks and trap the muscles competition. Because
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: of competition, he didn't want anybody to know. And they
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: were very silly, big money. It was big money, and
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 3: you know they could make you know, in the forties.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't know exactly all the ratios and everything,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: but you know, you know, trapping in a day, they
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: can make a month's wages, or you know, trapping a week,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: they could make a year's wages sometimes, you know, especially
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: if they knew how to catch mink as well. You know,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: they were you know, mink were like forty bucks back
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 3: in the forties. So so yeah, and even the dealer side,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: like going on a show like this and telling even
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 3: some of the stuff I've said today, you know, like
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 3: we would never have uttered that stuff.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: Give me an example of what you wouldn't have said, like.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: Even what we used some of the tales for, you
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 3: know where that I sell direct in China, where I
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 3: sell I mean I would broadcast you know, the guys
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 3: I'm partners with in China. I don't care. You know.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: Back then, Oh, you wouldn't tell one customer to anybody else.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: You hid tags if you had customers come to your place.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: You were so secretive. You would like if you went
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 3: to you know, to to a big auction, you know,
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 3: like one of NAFA's auctions or something. You know, you
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 3: wouldn't talk to your customers. They wouldn't talk to you.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: You know, you kept it all. Everything was secret. Now
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 3: we are secretive with basically nothing. We know. We don't
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 3: even care.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 8: You know, did you like that era or not?
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 3: It was It was definitely a more romantic era, you know,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: like you bought the skins. It was dominated by people
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: that you know had uh, they had nerves of steale.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: I'll just say okay, and they would buy. They would
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 3: fight to buy, and then they would just use their sheer,
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: you know, strength to try to get the most money
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 3: for it, you know, to make a buck on it.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 3: They had low expenses and they just they were gamblers,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: you know. That's that's who dominated the fur trade. My
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 3: dad was a you know, he was a you know,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: math genius, you know, and that's just the type of
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 3: guy that really was successful, you know, back in the day.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: And that's not how we run our business at all anymore.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: It's nothing like that, but that was. It was definitely
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: a wild and uh tumble business dominated by you know,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: really smart individuals.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 6: So you used to buy it math auctions, Yeah, we sure,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 6: sure we did.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 6: Wonder if you bought any of my stuff.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: I had a couple of top top lot first.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 11: Wow, oh boy there, and that sure made a big
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 11: deal out of it right in his place.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 8: Have you knowingly produced any famous firs that were worn
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 8: by like a first lady or to a red carpet
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 8: or anything.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we have. I mean, you know, the guy that
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 3: made Joe Namas coat when he was on the Super Bowl,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 3: that was that was on my customers. I sold in
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 3: those kyots.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: Seriously. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, it's hard to think of something
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 3: right now. But you know, I mean back in the day,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 3: I've had Paris Hilton order from us. Uh what else. Yeah,
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 3: we've had uh, we've had you know, lots of you know,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 3: we and we sell to the you know, all the
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 3: major brands you know use our stuff or they have
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 3: you know, some of them don't use for anymore.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 8: But yeah, you know you should get that photo of
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 8: name it in that coat, get like a badge in
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 8: your office.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 3: Right well, I think it's up somewhere.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: We could use to promote this podcast, right yeah, the
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: man who sold the man who.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 8: Uh, this morning, the Dow Jones was down nine hundred points.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 8: Is that as far reaching as like changing your raccoon
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 8: prices this week?
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 3: Or No, It's not gonna change my prices today. Obviously
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 3: I'm not buying any right now, but it is definitely
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 3: something we watch. You know, the economy in China right
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 3: now is rough. It's it's it's very poor. And you know,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 3: the stock market, you know, going up or down five
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 3: percent in China is not really gonna make the economy
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 3: that much worse. I mean, there are days where I
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 3: have been you know a lot more upset when I
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 3: saw the doal go down, you know, a thousand points,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 3: but you know they're not. You know, it's it's not
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 3: like we're selling one hundred million mank in China. We
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 3: need to because the economy is just rocket because that
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 3: was what was going on. I mean, the economy was
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 3: on fire. You know, people bought a condo in in China.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, I had lots of customers. Let me tell
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 3: you this is you know, this is not untrue at all.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: They bought their first condo for you know, seventy eight
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 3: thousand bucks. You know, it was worth three hundred thousand bucks.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 3: A couple years later they bought their next one. You know,
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 3: the next one was you know the five hundred, the million,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 3: the million two, the million eight, and you know everybody
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 3: was doing that in China, and you know, everybody there
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 3: was the wealth effect. Everybody was rich. Everybody was buying
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 3: for coats and yeah, it was it was. It was huge.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 3: So you know it's really not probably gonna have a
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 3: ton of effect. But you know, we watch it if
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 3: we have, you know, too much problems. You know, you know,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 3: the cats don't go there, the beaver don't go there.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 3: You know that the beaver is an American item kind
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 3: of as far as the hats, you know, that would
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 3: be something that you know, we worry about. You know,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 3: so if demand starts to deteriorate, it's it'll definitely affect
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 3: the price. I mean, I'm on the I'm on the
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: phone with China or Bryce Is you know every day,
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 3: four or five times a day, you know, every morning
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 3: we wake up with our we chats and you know,
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 3: we go over them and we talk to our customers.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 3: They give us a rundown of what they sold the
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 3: night before from each each store, and then we go
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: from there.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: No kid, Yeah, so, uh is fur gonna shine again?
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: As they say in the Charltte has the movie The Mountain, Then.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think the chance that we have
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: is really with kind of this environmental consciousness that I
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 3: really do. I think if we can hold out, you
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 3: know for five years or something, I mean this maink thing, yeah,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 3: it'll it'll probably help us. But we've got a new
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 3: generation of people that are not you know, they're they're
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: conscious consumers, and uh, I think they're to you know,
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 3: look at what they're buying, and they're not just going
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 3: to say, well that's a that's a dead animal. They're
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 3: gonna say, you know, how environmentally friendly is that? And uh,
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 3: I really do think they they will look at it.
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, I I mentioned that I live part time
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 3: in Madison, you know, and it's a very liberal city,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 3: you know. But I tell you, when you talk to
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 3: you know, people in in that sort of scenario, you know,
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 3: they're very understanding. You know, It's not like it's a
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 3: hard sell to say, Hey, you know, why don't you
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 3: buy something that you know it's not going to last
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 3: for five hundred years in a landfill? You know, why
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 3: don't you buy something that's not going to produce you know,
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 3: any uh, you know any you know, residual effect after
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 3: just a few years. And uh, those those they're they're
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 3: really open.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: To that, like it's a renewable material.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 3: Sure. Sure, So I think, uh, I think we do
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 3: have a chance with this generation. Cause, like I said,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 3: you know, it's we're we're we're selling a coat right
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 3: now that that has a rough on it, and we're
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 3: not taking that tach you know, we're not trying to
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: to sell it to you know, college girls that have
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 3: really you know, uh, you know, real liberal bents or anything.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: But you know, certainly I don't think that would be
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 3: a hard sell to do if you if you really
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 3: wanted to take that task on, you know, you know,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 3: with all natural fibers, so including obviously including fur. So
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 3: I think it has a chance. I think all natural
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 3: fibers do. And uh, you know, as as consumers become
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 3: more conscientious, they'll uh you know, we're you know, they'll
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 3: they'll they'll they'll look at that, you know. I mean
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 3: we all used to buy aerosols that depleted the ozone layer,
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 3: and you know we all figured out a way to switch.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we'll see what happens. I think the fur
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 3: business has to realize that you know that animal rights
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 3: people and environmental people are are you know, different people.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 3: You know, it's not the same. Sure it's not. They're
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: not the same. And you know, we have to think
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 3: of ourselves as being part of this sort of cottage
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: industry that's no no different than somebody raising vegetables on
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: their farm. You know, we're super sustainable, you know, we're
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 3: you know, I think I think that's the cell that
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 3: we have.
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: So and you guys will be out the grown walls,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: the grown balds, sure, grown walls, grown walls will be
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: out buying furthest fall. We certainly will out of people, Uh,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: out of people find you guys.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's interesting. Last week I was actually with
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 3: the conservation officer and uh, I actually had a fish
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 3: kill on my property that because of a environmental deal,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 3: but big cattle shit ended up being that. Yeah. But anyway,
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: uh yeah big Yeah, we're sitting next to the creek.
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 3: The conservation officer was asking me my name and I said,
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 3: you know, he lives fourteen miles from where where our
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 3: factory is. And I said to him, I said, but
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 3: you know, you know who I am, right, you know?
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 3: And uh he said no, you know And I said, well,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 3: he said, you know, we buy fer and he said yeah,
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 3: he said, I thought.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: I thought I heard about.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 3: Something like that down in forest and you know, which
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 3: is fourteen was away and he said, I trap and
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 3: I was looking for a place to sell my stuff,
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 3: you know. And I'm like, are you kidding me? You know,
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 3: we are the biggest burbuyer in the world, you know,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 3: and you don't know, but that is a little bit
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 3: of a problem.
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: Obviously, we have a website, we have you know, social media,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 3: and we are really big on social media. But you
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 3: have trappers, and I mean it is not just the
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 3: odd guy. I mean you have guys that come to
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 3: the truck and they're just like Wow, you know, I
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 3: can't believe you guys exist. You know, I started trapping
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 3: during COVID. I wanted something to do, and you know,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 3: I just haven't had any place to sell my stuff
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 3: for the past three years. And I've been tanning some
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 3: but I've got skins hanging all over the garage. You know,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 3: my wife's sick of them. And you know, I finally,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: you know, found you guys. But it is really it's
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 3: really kind of a trapping is kind of popular. I mean,
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 3: if you want to, you know, you guys are whitetail hunters.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 3: If you want to hunt on somebody's property in the Midwest,
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 3: maybe not so much out here. You know, you tell them, hey,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: I'll trap the raccoons or I'll trap the coyotes. You know,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 3: that's a way to get on their property, you know,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 3: to trap white tails. And that's what a lot of
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 3: these guys do. And you know what to do with
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: your skins. Well, there's there's there's a market for him.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, give them sold man.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 8: His website has the routes listed, I'm gonna find you
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 8: this fall. Okay, traded a deer hide for some gloves,
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 8: all right, all right, sounds good.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: Thanks for coming on the show.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 3: All right, all right, thank you very much. Gfw co
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: o dot com. Do it real slow, g f w
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 3: co dot com and people can go there to find
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 3: your routes. Yeah. Yeah, they'll be posted sometime beginning of October,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 3: so we'll post them. We buy. We don't really buy
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 3: routes in the West. You know, there's not enough people
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 3: to run routes out here. But you know all of Wisconsin,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 3: you know, Illinois, Indiana, New York, uh, Nebraska, Missouri, all
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 3: the whole South, the whole all the states in the southeast,
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 3: North Carolina, South Carolina. You know, we cover the whole
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 3: Midwest and the East coast. So so all you.
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 2: Guys doing raccoon control on your place because you're trying
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: to help turkey numbers or would duck numbers. Yeah, do
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: it in the winter, right during the winter, and call up,
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: call the Gronwald family and.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 4: Get down the route.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 9: You're gonna get bombarded.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 3: Now, right, I hope. So thanks for having me on
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 3: the show too, man.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that's great, very educational.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 4: Thanks man, I appreciate it.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 12: Run the rabbit stuff, rum num rabbits, then.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 13: Buster's and lead.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 7: He showing off that speed. Run the rabbit stuff.
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 13: Through the thorns, through the thorns, and Ma, she's close behind.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 7: Now with one thing on.
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 13: Through the thorns.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 14: Run and rabstann run rabbits down Skeeter's and packed new.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 14: There ain't no turn back.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 7: Brown the rabbit stown.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 13: Crawls the chili m h crawls, chili creep.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 14: Spanky's in the ear, that old rabbit strawn everything crawls chili.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 7: So run the rabbit.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 14: Style, run the rabbits down shot down to the shorer Niles.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 7: Race on the rabbit starn.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 12: Choorley's looking Choorley's looking home. He ran his last races home.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 7: To a better places, and he says, run and rabbit
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 3: Down h