Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1899 — A Big Lot of Furs. [ARTICLE]

A Big Lot of Furs.

B. S. Fendig, our enterprising far deaier is making about the largest single shipment of furs today he ever made. It comprises 200 mink shins, 100 skunks, 100 possums, 50 coons and two wolves. The minks are the aristocrats of the lot, as they cost from $1.50 to $1.75 each. Skunks though in ‘bad odor” from a literal point of view, are really in high repute as furs, and are worth from SI.OO to $1.26 per pelt. As to the coons while there is nothing flashy or extra fashionable about them are always reliable and are worth from 50 cents to SI.OO. Wolves are not of much value, being worth 50 or 60 cents. Muskrats, or in the vernacular of the trade, simply “rats” are now as always the plebeans, the riff-raff of the fur trade. They are worth only 12 cents. Mr. Fendig buys very few of them now and is glad of it. For the benefit of people who are curious to know where so many fur bearing wild animals are still to be found in this now old settled region, we may stfy that the great part of them come from along-the Kankakee river or its immediate neighborhood. Mr. Fendig buys the great balk of the furs caught in that region. The furs from there are not only more abundant, but usually of a better quality than are to be found in or near the smaller streams. The minks, for instance are larger and their fur blacker in color than those in this vicinity. Most of the larger and better colored coons are also found in the woods near that stream..