Thread: Wanting to get into possum trapping - looking for tips and advice.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

I can sleave skin from either end....tailend first is faster,head end first is cleaner..and open skin,but havent opened one up for years...and these days most just pluck..but the prices Ive heard for skins are very good...

Dunno about yours and my last effort though still the greens will think we're the bees knees with our composting effort!!!

Interesting about skins .years ago when i was training at Seaview in Hokitika ,Basil Detlaff ran a very well patronised possum skin industry at Ross.Some of the deer recovery crews used to buy fur inners for sheepskin jackets worn whilst bowling deer in the freezing slipstream of a screaming Hughes 500 way up the back of godnoswheere in the southern alps.
Two women i worked with bought ladies evening jackets also -first was hip length made from matched red skins -second ordered as hip length was made floor length and it was bloody spectacular. wouldnt have looked out of place at the Oscars!
Also rich Yanks developed a fetish for skin products .bloke i knew ran a menswear shop[ in hoki-he told me of a well off NY socialite and her sugar daddy who ordered a bedspread made of matched skins and had one of New Yorks top designers redesign their luxurious apartment around this.
Apparently he was heard to say "whaat ma babe wants ma baabe gets!"

An old bloke a scotsman who lived near my grandparents up the Grey valley used to shoot em with a single shot .22 as they gazed enchanted by his flickering acetylene miners lamp .Old Jjimmy got more than a few silver greys which he shipped to the european fur markets in London.Apparently his product was very well rated often fetching 26+pounds per skin.

European furriers prized these skins for manufacture of topline furs for ther rich and elite royalty included.