Rawhide

Salting a raw sheepskin at the smokers' dresser ( Rötha , 2009)

As raw hide which one is fur peeled nor unzugerichtete or untanned skin called. The skins suitable for fur processing are also called raw fur skins in a more differentiated manner . The roughly fleshed skin is either still wet or has dried and perhaps tensioned. Larger items of raw hides are called raw materials in the tobacco trade .

As far as the respective legislation allows, the resulting skins are used economically according to their suitability. Depending on the condition of the hair, the leather (thickness and condition of the skin), the size of the fur surface, and partly also on the degree of coloration, they are supplied to various industries as raw products. This is, among other purposes, the tobacco industry, the hair cutting industry, the tannery industry and the glue industry. With appropriate suitability, the greatest benefit can usually be achieved when feeding it for fur purposes. The hides that fall off when the hair is used can be tanned into leather together with the skins that are not suitable for fur.

Raw hide preservation

Depending on the type of coat and custom, the skins are cut open (open) or closed (peeled off round), hair inside or outside, on the market. Only fully matured, undamaged and well-dried raw hides achieve the highest daily prices. These skins in their best quality can also be recognized from the leather side. They have a light-colored leather ("white leather"), in contrast to underdeveloped, greenish-leather skins ("green leather").

The raw hides are obtained in the following stages: killing the animal, stripping, cleaning, tensioning and drying of the skin and subsequent treatment.

The raw hides are tainted with carcass and fat residues after they have been cut off. In this damp state, they begin to rot very quickly and are attacked by insects. All preservation methods are based on reducing the water content of the skin to such a minimum that the living conditions for bacteria and other microorganisms that cause the decomposition process are not reached. In order to prevent rotting, the skins must be dried immediately , made durable by salting , drying salt or pimples. Dry salting is understood to mean a treatment of the raw fur in saturated saline solution with subsequent drying or salting with additional subsequent drying. An acid-salt solution, known as a pimple, also has a draining and preserving effect. There may be salted before drying among other sealskin and also occasionally referred to as a salt skins Baghdad Lammfelle . Properly dried raw hides can be stored in their raw condition for years if handled correctly.

Rawhide damage

Impairments in the value of raw hides arise primarily from incorrect treatment, apart from defects that have already occurred in living animals, such as bald spots, offspring, bite wounds or other skin injuries. The skins must not be torn or damaged by the knife when they are pulled off or fleshed. Meat and parts of fat are putrefaction and should be removed if possible. In particular, skins from warm countries often have glassy, hard areas known as "raw burned", which can no longer be made soft and quickly during dressing. The error usually arises when skins are dried in the sun that is too hot or in the oven. The collagen , the structural protein of the connective tissue , of which the skin consists almost exclusively, is affected ; which dissolves in hot water to form ember glue. In the event of improper preservation, fur pests endanger the fur ( moths , bacon beetles and others) if stored for a long time without refrigeration .

Raw fur trade

One of the first sorting machines for raw mink hides (2009)

The countries which, due to their natural occurrence, contribute particularly to the production of fur, are referred to as raw fur suppliers by the trade . Among others, this includes Canada, especially the United States, Russia, China and Australia with Alaska. The exports of the skins can be made as raw skins or prepared. Various countries have in the past restricted or restricted the export of raw hides in order to protect their own skin processing industry, for example Argentina.

The trade describes the raw hide season as the period in which the best quality skins are obtained from nature. In northern areas this is the time from the beginning of November to the end of February. South of the equator, these are the months in which it is summer in Central Europe. Furs that occur prematurely are considered to be autumn attacks ("falls"), the late or spring attack ("springs") is also much lower in quality. The rawhide season can also be restricted by legal closed seasons.

The raw fur trade in the locally collected or farmed fur takes place mainly through auction companies. The first fur auction was held in 1671 by the Hudson's Bay Company in London. Almost exclusively raw, unfinished skins are offered at the auctions. The auction companies have their headquarters in the countries of origin of the skins, some auction and also sell foreign goods over the counter. Because of the cost and time required, buyers have always had an interest in having to visit as few auction sites as possible. The possibility of online bidding is likely to increasingly reduce personal shopping in the auction room in the future. By far the largest auction company is Copenhagen Fur , a foundation of the Danish fur breeders. The company not only trades the largest proportion of the mink fur produced worldwide , but also sells lambskins from Namibia called " Swakara ". Here the raw skins are sorted one last time in order to offer the buyer a matching product and to enable a different price that is adapted to the respective quality. They are separated by type and divided into batch sizes suitable for the expected buyers.

After the auctions, the prices obtained for the various types of fur, fur types, fur sizes and qualities are published as market quotations and compared with the results of the previous auction by the same company. Various countries compile trade statistics that provide information on the value and amount of annual imports and exports of raw hides. The raw fur position indicates the respective position or notation in which the skins are listed in relation to other customs goods. Within the customs procedure or in the import and export statistics, the fur is divided into raw hides, prepared hides, colored hides, semi-finished fur products , finished products, etc.

As early as the 1920s, the finishing furrier was no longer buying “just raw foxes , martens , polecats , weasels , squirrels , moles , canines and cats , he prefers to try raw skunks , American or Australian possums and others close. Silver , cross , polar , blue and Alaskan foxes come to furriers just as often in their raw state as the above-mentioned native varieties. "

However, the main buyer of the raw hides is first of all the tobacco wholesalers, who purchase the hides either directly on site or at auctions. Large clothing manufacturers and furriers also buy at the auctions. The raw hides are usually sent directly to the fur finishing companies most suitable for the goods on their behalf. The task of the middleman is also to sort the skins again, to make coats , jackets and trimmings suitable for kürschner , and to keep them in stock. Among other things, he bears part of the risk in the selection of goods in line with the market, economic fluctuations and, especially in the case of wild goods, the risk of failures due to hidden defects.

Trapper with Fox Skins (USA, 1906)
Before a raw fur auction in London (1913)
Inspection of raw hide at Sojuzpushnina , Leningrad (before 1970)
Cultivated tilted skins in the auction house (2009)
Raw sable hides in their typical, compressed, peeled shape

Federal Republic of Germany

In 1963 raw hides worth 11.5 million DM were exported from the Federal Republic of Germany . The imports of raw fur hides amounted to:
out	in millions of DM	out	in millions of DM
United States	40.7	People's Republic of China	26.7
Denmark	22.5	Sweden	19.1
Norway	15.4	Canada	12.7
Brazil	12.2	Great Britain	5.6

Up until the Second World War, the area around the Leipziger Brühl was the main trading point for raw fur hides, until the Nazis came to power and the mostly Jewish fur traders were expelled in 1933, it was one of the three largest tobacco goods trading centers in the world. After the war, the area around Frankfurt's Niddastraße quickly took this place, mainly with tobacco shops from Leipzig. Ten years after the end of the war, the fur industry expanded to an unusual extent. In the Frankfurt Pelzviertel there were more and more fur manufacturers and furriers who worked for them. In contrast to Leipzig, the fur trimmers were no longer located around the city, but were distributed, preferably in the south of the Federal Republic. But all fur refiners who are essentially nationally active had branches in the Niddastraße fur district , known in the Frankfurt branch as "Brühl".

In 1980 the value of the skins imported into the Federal Republic of Germany in that year, with an increase of 12 percent, was over a billion DM for the first time. The main share of the total import value of 1,057.4 million were raw mink skins , 4.5 million , Pieces with a total value of DM 402 million. The importation of karakul skins , on the other hand, fell slightly, in line with the ongoing fashion trend with a change from Persian to mink.

In the post-war period, the wild hides were still used almost without exception in both parts of Germany. In Baden-Württemberg, which was occupied by the United States, according to an order from the Agriculture Office, every skin suitable for processing had to be delivered to the responsible collection points within 30 days. In the Federal Republic of Germany this is now only happening to a very limited extent. In particular, the neo-biota muskrat and nutria, which are undesirable because of the dam and bank damage, are hunted on official instructions and their skins are hardly used. In the past, only a small part of the red foxes that were shot were recycled through various commercial dealers or as personal use. Buyers are usually tobacco shops or fur dressers. To counteract the ever-decreasing use of wild fur, the German Hunting Association and the Baden-Württemberg State Hunting Association founded Fellwechsel GmbH at the end of 2016 , a company that processes and markets fur.

Sculpture: Delivery of raw lambskins in Leinefelde, Thuringia
Assessment of raw hides (Pelzviertel Niddastraße 1960)
Fellballen with hand truck (passage Niddastraße, 1973)
Raw muskrat skins

German Democratic Republic

See also → Brühlpelz

The only Jewish fur trader from Brühl who is known to have survived the concentration camp and came back to Leipzig was Albert Hirschfeld (* 1891; † 1961), listed in the specialist directory from 1938 with the address Brühl 46/48.

In 1976, based on his dissertation, Horst Keil published a fundamental work on the trade in raw hides in the former GDR . He defined raw fur hides as “all raw hides (skin with a coat pulled from the animal's body) [...] that have been prepared, refined and, if necessary, dyed and then made into fur garments for the tobacco industry according to the beauty and density of the coat and the corresponding condition of the leather the cold protection and can be processed for jewelry purposes. Raw pelts that can be used for this purpose in the tobacco industry are tobacco products. […] As fur skins, only prepared and refined skins are to be designated, which can be processed into fur in a shortened manner. […] This clear definition of the terms raw fur, fur, and tobacco products is necessary because different terms are used in the tobacco industry for the same terms. This phenomenon can also be seen in literature. The term fur is used for the skin with hair coat peeled off the animal's body in the raw or refined, trimmed state and the term fur for the fur used in an item of clothing. Raw fur also refers to the peeled, untreated, untanned animal hide and fur to the cut and (if necessary) dyed skins that are already intended for the manufacture of fur clothing. "

In the 1961/62 rawhide season, production in the GDR amounted to 21.7 million marks according to producer prices, with an estimated world volume of 350 million US dollars. Mainly in the GDR there were furriers, with a share of the total volume of 65.3%, hamster skins 24.91%, mink skins 1.39%, and other wild skins 1.39%, the rest were by-products of meat production including nutria the meat was a by-product.

The following were named as the emergence of raw fur hide in the GDR in 1976:

From the noble fur breeding of the GDR
Mink fur	Noble fox skins ( silver , platinum , blue fox )
Raccoon skins	Karakul skin (Persian)
Nutria skins	planned: chinchilla
From slaughter for meat production
Calfskins	Sheepskins , lambskins, Schmaschenskins, research skins (age between lamb and Schmaschen)
Goatskins , kidskins	Rabbit fur (tame rabbit)
Others from pet ownership
Cat skins	Guinea pig skins
Resources from hunting and catching
Squirrel skins	Otter skins
Hamster skins	Weasel skins
Polecat skins	Mole skins
Pine marten skins	Wild rabbit fur
Beech marten skins	Muskrats
Red fox skins	Rabbit skins

The procurement and sale of raw hides in the GDR was subject to VEAB - the people's own collection and purchase company for animal raw materials . Around 1965 there were 91 collection points for animal raw materials and 119 collection warehouses or shops across the country, in which the individual deliveries were bought and collected. If the raw hides were not delivered in a preserved state, this was done by the sales organizations. The Leipzig auctions were used to procure foreign currency, the buyers there were exclusively companies from “capitalist” countries, in particular the USA, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland and the Federal Republic.

At the raw fur and sorting warehouse of VEAB Leipzig

Austria

Not only in Austria, numerous fur dressing shops have closed since around 2000. On a company website of a company in Styria in 2020 it could be read that fur tanning of predatory game, wild boar, big game and chamois is no longer offered because the orders could no longer be managed due to the loss of competitors and no workers were available on the regional market . Instead, they want to focus on the tanning of chamois leather.

Historical packaging of the raw hides

Fort William Historical Park Museum, Canada
Old baler
Pressed balls of fur

Before the raw hides reached the finishers in the processing countries, they had mostly come a long way, on which they were often exposed to a variety of impairments and dangers. In view of their high value, it was appropriate that they should be adequately protected. Crate and barrel packaging were chosen when the goods were particularly valuable and the quality of the raw hides should be avoided as a result of pressing or lacing. It also protected the skins from damage caused by the bale hooks often used during loading. Particularly commercially were crate , barrel , bale , bag , package and parcel . If the overseas transports were particularly valuable, seaworthy crate packaging was chosen. This was made of solid wood, waterproof oil paper offered good protection against moisture. To prevent theft, two boxes placed one inside the other were sometimes used. Often the boxes were lined with a zinc shell that was soldered at the head end.

Bast baskets and wickerwork were often used . This material, which is abundant there, was mainly used in China and Russia, which due to its low weight did not significantly increase freight costs for long transport routes.

Russia sent the raw hides mainly in ball form. Skillful ball knitting or a bale stick made it possible to pull the ropes very tight. For this, the pelts had to be cleverly laid, “that is, crosswise and often connecting with the pelt heads” in order to create a durable mass. The whole thing was then sewn into bast mats. Seaworthy packaged bales were compressed with a baling press : “The raw skins are placed in layers in a press made of a wooden frame. There are ropes on it that go over a wave. The compression takes place in jerks via a gear, which is wound by a strong stick. As far as the strength of the packer's arms is sufficient, the skin mass is compressed into a ball mass. ”However, in the year cited here, in 1937 there were already“ special presses with hydraulic pressure that stow many thousands of raw hides in enormous bale sizes ”. They were held together and protected by steel bands ("band iron"). Rawhides in such bales can easily "sweat" or "get hot", especially if they were moist and greasy when they were packed. If they were not sufficiently pressed and air got into the skins, the skins often went moldy. “Conscientious packers” prevented worm damage by sprinkling camphor or naphthalene . Not only the Persians from South West Africa , now Namibia , now known as Swakara , were coated with a poisonous solution on the leather side, which should also prevent insect damage.

As is still the case today, parcels or parcels were used for fast transport and light skin weights. In the 1930s, however, it was still reported that the skins were sewn into a kind of white canvas or into the coarser gray sackcloth after being tied beforehand. These packets or parcels were then well sealed with shellac at short intervals in order to reduce the risk of theft on the way. A cardboard box was less used as the wrapper because the canvas wrapper was not as sensitive to throwing during reloading.

In the 1930s, experts could already tell the type of content from the packaging:

White, but already tanned, rabbit skins came in hand-tied bales with a bast cover from Russia, Siberia and China , which were sold by weight, including packaging. Marble skins , also an important export item from Russia, were artfully laid and sprinkled with naphthalene in the layers. Chinese mouflons were also tanned and were therefore easier to pack as bales. In order to save freight costs, traders sent from North America and Australia, Bisam- , opossum , Wallaby- and muskrat pelts , from South America Nutria- , opossum and fox skins packed in especially large bales, but also in seaworthy crates. The steppe fox skins from Asia Minor also came in bales, "but they often lack careful packaging". The raw Persians from Russia, who had already been pretreated with a bran bead , were bundled with colored woolen threads, tied in a white skin cover, over which another canvas came as an outer cover. India's main fur articles, Indian lambskins and Indian broad-tailed , only in trade since the late 1920s, mostly also came as linen parcels.

Ermine, marten and Kolinsky skins were always packed in the more resistant bast baskets for larger deliveries.

Raw sealskins were usually brought in cured in barrels. The seal skins were washed beforehand in order to remove oil stains which, after prolonged storage, lead to yellowing that is difficult to remove again. In Finland, barrels were popular, especially for shipping noble fox skins. The long-haired fur of blue, silver, white and red foxes suffers when pressed together or tied.

The pre-tanned Tibetan lambskins from China came in rectangular boxes made of particularly hard wood, lined with orange-colored oil paper on the inside. In even earlier times, the same was true of the bird skins for garnishing hats, by Grebes and others who came from Russia and Asia Minor. Regarding the skins of the African ostrich , the largest living bird, a handbook for the hides trade in 1956 noted:

Salted, canned pelts are 6 to 9 square feet in size, and 2nd grade pelts are slightly smaller (5 to 8 square feet). The goods are loaded in sacks.

Dry skins range in size from 5 to 8 square feet. The quality of dry skins is worse than that of salted ones. The goods are loaded in bales. The African goods are more flawed (sleek, damaged by cuts), if only because they are not slaughterhouse goods.

Russia: Dealer with balls of fur, fair in Nizhny Novgorod (before 1912)
Australia: Truckload of wild canine skins (ca.1905)
Canada: trading post with balls of fur (drawing, 1882)
Labrador : Fur loading in barrels (before 1912)
Alaska : Seal Skins in Barrels (1957)

finishing

During the finishing process, the leather of the raw hide is transformed into a permanent condition that is suitable for processing. In contrast to tanning , the coat remains intact. Round skins that are not cut lengthways are laid flat before trimming, if necessary or useful for further processing. The cutting is done mechanically with the raw skin cutting machine .

Marginalia

Mentioned in 1951, at that time the Roebuck & Co. company in Chicago held an annual raw fur competition. The quality or size of the skins was not taken into account, only the condition of the raw bellows was assessed. The aim was to encourage the trappers to treat the skins appropriately and thus improve their value: “In 1934 the trapper Joseph E. Fischer in Merryweather [ Merriweather ?] In the state of Michigan (USA) received the first price considering the excellent quality and appropriate quality Treatment of the raw hides he has applied. The trapper took part in the competition with four muskrats , three skunks , five minks , two weasels , three wild cats and a wolf skin . "

Web links

Commons : Furskins by Species - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Horst Keil: The trade in raw fur hides in the GDR . Central control center for information and documentation of the Institute for Recording and Buying Agricultural Products, Berlin (Ed.), 1967, p. 9. → Table of contents . Abridged and revised version of a dissertation on the topic: The organization and management of the procurement trade with raw fur hides in the GDR . Faculty of Karl Marx University Leipzig, pp. 9, 11, 15, 16, 49, 53, 68.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and Rough Goods, Volume XXI . Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1951, p. 44–46 , keywords “raw fur”, “raw fur imports”, “raw fur suppliers”, “raw fur market”, “raw fur position”, “raw fur season”, “raw fur competition”, “raw Persians”, “raw cane”, “raw burnt furs” .

^ R. Fritzsche, Friedrich Joppich, Curt Kniesche, Walter Krauße, Paul Schöps, W. Spöttel: Raw fur extraction and recovery , work No. 30. German Society for Small Animal and Fur Breeding, Leipzig 1933, p. 3.

↑ ^a ^b ^c Author collective: Manufacture of tobacco products and fur clothing . VEB Fachbuchverlag Leipzig 1970, pp. 46, 57–59, 129 (→ table of contents ).

↑ Ulf D. Wenzel: The fur animal book. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Cologne 1990, p. 22.

↑ Alexander Tuma jun .: The furrier's practice . Julius Springer, Vienna 1928, p. 50 . (→ Table of Contents) .

↑ Arthur Hermsdorf, Gerd Kursawe, Peter Tonert: The fur wholesale after 1945 - a review . In: Rauchwarenmarkt Br. 11-12, December 1985, p. 6.

↑ Klothar J. Müller: The Federal Republic of important center of the European fur trade . In: Rund um den Pelz No. 6, June 1965, p. 42.

↑ Fur import and export 1980: Raw fur import over a million for the first time . In: Winckelmann Pelzmarkt No. 583, Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 1-2. Primary source: Federal Statistical Office Wiesbaden.

↑ Peter Melchers: The wholesalers in the tobacco industry . Westkulturverlag Anton Hain, Meisenheim, Vienna, 1953, p. 32.

^ Order 3/46 of the Württemberg / Baden Ministry of Economics - Agriculture Office - for the implementation of Order III / 46 of December 16, 1946 . December 16, 1945.

↑ Homepage fur change . Last accessed on January 18, 2019.

^ Walter Fellmann: The Leipziger Brühl . VEB Fachbuchverlag, Leipzig 1989, p. 209.

↑ Guide through the Brühl and the Berlin fur industry , Werner Kuhwald Verlag, Leipzig 1938, p. 48.

↑ Homepage of the Schlüßlmayr tannery, Gröbming . Last accessed on January 28, 2020.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Unless stated by the author: Commercially available rawhide packaging. In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt , June 18, 1937, p. 3.

↑ "Ch.": The development of the raw fur market in India . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt , December 1, 1939, p. 8.

↑ Christian Franke, Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel ’s Rauchwaren-Handbuch 1988/89 . 10th revised and expanded edition. Rifra-Verlag, Murrhardt 1988, p. 322-323, 330, 361 .

^ John Lahs, Georg von Stering-Krugheim: Handbook on wild hides and skins . From the company Allgemeine Land- und Seetransportgesellschaft Hermann Ludwig, Hamburg (ed.), Hamburg 1956, p. 237.

[Keil-1] Horst Keil: The trade in raw fur hides in the GDR . Central control center for information and documentation of the Institute for Recording and Buying Agricultural Products, Berlin (Ed.), 1967, p. 9. → Table of contents . Abridged and revised version of a dissertation on the topic: The organization and management of the procurement trade with raw fur hides in the GDR . Faculty of Karl Marx University Leipzig, pp. 9, 11, 15, 16, 49, 53, 68.

[Pelzlexikon_XXI-2] Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and Rough Goods, Volume XXI . Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1951, p. 44–46 , keywords “raw fur”, “raw fur imports”, “raw fur suppliers”, “raw fur market”, “raw fur position”, “raw fur season”, “raw fur competition”, “raw Persians”, “raw cane”, “raw burnt furs” .

[3] R. Fritzsche, Friedrich Joppich, Curt Kniesche, Walter Krauße, Paul Schöps, W. Spöttel: Raw fur extraction and recovery , work No. 30. German Society for Small Animal and Fur Breeding, Leipzig 1933, p. 3.

[Rauchwarenherstellung-4] Author collective: Manufacture of tobacco products and fur clothing . VEB Fachbuchverlag Leipzig 1970, pp. 46, 57–59, 129 (→ table of contents ).

[Wenzel-5] Ulf D. Wenzel: The fur animal book. Verlag Eugen Ulmer, Cologne 1990, p. 22.