Fox fur

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Sea fox (colored), hat and collar. Competition entry from a trainee (2009)
Sea fox skin (approx. 1978)

In the fur trade, raccoon dog fur has always been traded under many names, but mostly not as raccoon dog fur . The common names are actually sea ​​fox or tanuki . Not only to the tobacco products, the sale , but also in the wholesale and retail trade is Seefuchsfell for his parts in raccoon-like meanwhile appearance with the misleading name Finnraccoon (from Finland), Russian Raccoon or Chinese Raccoon offered ( English raccoon = raccoon). These names are based on the fact that the raccoon dog is also called raccoon dog . In breeders' language it is generally called Ussurij Jenot = Ussurian raccoon or Jenotowidnaja Sobaka = raccoon- like dog.

Originally only native to eastern Siberia, northeastern China and Japan, the raccoon dog has now penetrated through expatriation in 1934 to the Ukraine as far as Finland and also to Germany (first raccoon dog shot in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1962). Due to the expatriations, the amount of fur had increased four to six times by 1986. The IUCN accordingly assesses the raccoon dog as not endangered ("Least Concern").

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Finnraccoon (breed)

The roughly fox-sized, long and thickly haired fur has a stubby tail as a simple characteristic of the raccoon; the peculiar whitish-gray band over the eye area makes it otherwise similar to the raccoon. The basic tone of the fur is a dirty, earthy yellow-brown or yellow-gray, with a strong proportion of black tones, often with a more or less broad, dark, cross-shaped back markings. The dewlap, i.e. the belly side, is always much darker than the back, so that the raccoon dog is one of the few animals with a so-called "reverse coloring". The short-haired parts of the fur - throat, chest, dewlap and claws - are always dark to black-brown. The tail is darker than the body hair. The back of the ears is dark. Young animals are almost completely hairy black. In summer the fur appears darker because the guard hairs only gradually fade after the hair change. As with most fur animals, the coat is full and thick in the hair in the months of November to January and is then of the best quality.

The rather coarse guard hair reaches a length of 6.5 to 12 cm on the neck and is therefore even longer than that of the fox. As a result, the raccoon dog looks a little disproportionate to its size in its winter coat. Characteristic are the awns that are not evenly distributed but, like the silver fox, protrude from the undercoat in clumps. The under hair is very dense. 2072 new wool hairs were counted per cm² in August fur, 6264 in October and 9624 in December.

Color deviations occur relatively often: albinos, yellow and white-gray skins. Raccoon dogs are subject to a seasonal change of coat; the winter fur and the summer fur are similar in color; in summer it is slightly lighter, but the winter fur is considerably thicker and heavier. The head body length of the animals is about 65 to 80 cm, plus 15 to 25 cm of tail; the runs are very short.

The general fur character is reminiscent of the heavily haired, heavy quality of raccoon fur, which is traded as "heavies" . “ With its soft undercoat, which is thicker than that of any other dog, the fur would be immensely valuable if it were not interspersed with harder, yellowish-brown and darkly curled guard hairs that make the fur shaggy and rough. “It says in 1968 in a fur journal.

The durability coefficient for the fox fur is given as 50 to 60 percent. When fur animals are divided into the hair fineness classes silky, fine, medium-fine, coarse and hard, the sea fox hair is classified as medium-fine.

trade

The fur of the raccoon dog has been in international trade since the middle of the 19th century. Nevertheless, the animal was still quite unknown outside of its home for a long time. It was only when breeding experiments started in 1929 at the Russian state teaching and experimental farm for fur breeding, the Puschkino zoo , that the raccoon dog was a particularly easy-to-keep fur animal, did it increasingly appear in the zoological gardens. Although it was so much easier to keep than the mink, for example, it played only a modest role in fur farming for a long time because of the low price of fur. In 1986 it was even said: “ Farming was discontinued due to inefficiency ”. It was not until the revival of the fur-trimmed fashion at the end of the 20th century that breeding was revived, this time very considerably.

According to the name "shed" for the raccoon, which was used in the fur trade in the past, the raccoon or raccoon dog was called "Schuppenhund".

Chinese fox skins (breed)
Hood, trimmed with German sea fox (wild caught)

The (wild) origins were or are in trade:

  • Tanuki from Japan with soft back hair (silky), flat awn and cross-shaped neck and back; large furs (about 70 to 80 cm), the tail 15 to 20 cm long (!). The best, very fine, almost silky skins are called "Hokkoku". Tanuki were still very common in Japan until the middle of the 19th century, but the populations declined due to ruthless hunting. The Japanese fox skins are considered to be the finest, but according to information from the German tobacco trade, we have not had any skins in our shops since at least 1990.
The raw range was divided into the following origins:
a) Hokkaidō -Nambu (Yesso), very fine, almost silky
b) Ōshū (Northern Hondo ) - Kaga - best districts (BD) ( Shinshū , Nagano -po). Best in stores as Hokkuku if necessary.
c) Average districts (AD). Centrals
d) Banshū (southern Hondo)
e) Kyushu (including Shikoku ).
The original batches mostly contained 80 percent excellent and 20 percent secondary varieties, which were sorted into three qualities.
  • Amur ; very good qualities come from here, Bachrach calls them “ the finest peltries of this type ”, which means: without taking the Japanese Tanuki into account. They are on average larger and darker in the hair than other varieties. The undercoat is so dense that the awn stands upright in it and forms a nice contrast to the undercoat. They were traded via Khabarovsk on the Amur .
  • Manchuria ; very tall and long-haired but not very fine-haired; best "Ho-Lung-ho". The northern qualities come closest to Armurware. In 1936, southern skins were rated a quarter lower than those from the Armurg area. The trade route for the northern deposits led via Harbin , for the southern via Mukden .
  • Korea ; very large skins; very long-haired, but coarse-stranded, a less valued variety of the northern type.
  • East Siberia , very large to about 80 cm; good smoke , partly silky. Yellow-brownish with white-gray and black-brown.
  • Russia (Ussurian); Heads of Russian territory is in the fur wholesale as Sea Fox referred. They have almost no undercoat, are long awning, prickly.
The Russian standard names only one origin, Ussurian , which is offered in three qualities, 1st (full-haired), 2nd (less full-haired) and 3rd variety (thin-haired).
  • China ; from central China from the provinces of Hubei and Sichuan , the trade route went via Hankou , and from the province of Anhui , traded via Shanghai . The quality and quantity of fur from southern China was very low.
  • Finland , in 1955 the first reports about raccoon dogs immigrated from Russia and artificially settled there in some parts of the country appear in specialist fur magazines.

The skins are delivered in a rounded shape, with the hair facing in or out.

Currently, the main trades (from breeding) are:

  • Finnraccoon from Scandinavia (large hides; dense undercoat, big hair volume, grannig). Finland is currently the largest producer of sea fox fur (2011).
There are three types:
Finnraccoon
Arctic Finnraccoon (long-haired, dense gray undercoat, beige-brown guard hair, rustic look)
White , Whiteraccoon (natural white, ideal for coloring on all fashion colors).
The sorting takes place
by color : 3x Dark - 2x Dark - x Dark - Dark, Medium, Pale - x Pale - 2x Pale - 3x Pale - 4x Pale, White.
additionally according to the purity of the colors : Clarity I, II, III and IV.
according to sizes :
size to cm size to cm size to cm size to cm size to cm size to cm
1 88 0 97 20th 106 30th 115 40 124 50 133
  • Chinese raccoon (small to medium-sized, long awning, little undercoat (fluttering), yellow-brown).

Name of the raccoon dog in the tobacco industry

The specialist fur literature names a large number of, mostly inaccurate or misleading names that were used for the raccoon dog in connection with the fur (alphabetically):

Amur Raccoon, Amur Wolf, Asiatic Cross Fox, Asiatic Raccoon, Badger, Chinese Cross Fox, Chinese Cross Wolf, Chinese Japanese Wolf, Chinese Raccoon (Chinese Raccoon), Chinese Wolf, Enot (Enok), Finnraccoon, Japanese Cross Wolf, Japanese Fox, Japanese Fox, Japanese raccoon dog, Japanese cross fox, Japanese raccoon, Japanese wolf, Mukden raccoon, Mu (r) mansky (2013), fruit fox, Russian raccoon, sea fox, Tanuki (Japanese = badger), Ussurian Raccoon, Viverren dog, raccoon fox.

Early efforts by German tobacco products experts aimed to use the name Tanuki only for the Hokkaidō (Nyctereutes p. Viverriensis), the fur-wise best breed of the Japanese raccoon dog. All other varieties should be traded zoologically correctly as raccoon dog fur. However, since fur is now being offered at auctions as Finn Raccoon, Russian Raccoon etc. in the international fur fur trade, this has not been able to establish itself.

Processing, use

Sea fox cap (2012)
plucked fur (ragged)

In Japan, fox fur was used to make bellows, winter hats and drums, and the tasty meat was very much appreciated. Today it is used almost exclusively for hats and other small items of fur clothing, for trimmings, especially for trimmings on women's hoods and, because of its rustic-looking hair structure, similar to coyote fur, also a lot for men's hoods. The fox fur is rarely made into jackets, very rarely into coats. Mostly it is left in its natural color, occasionally it is also bleached. Natural white mutation skins are particularly suitable for dyeing and are mainly used for trimmings on fabric jackets and coats. Around 1900, sea fox fur, dyed blue or black, was used as a substitute for raccoons and skunks, dyed light gray as an imitation of silver fox or alternatively colored as a substitute for cross fox. As late as 1930, it was mainly used as trimmings with dyes. A relatively new working technique is full-skin air galonization . For this purpose, the skins are cut tightly and pulled apart to form a grid and fixed in this way when there is a significant increase in area.

The skins are hardly plucked today, i.e. processed without the hard awning hair. In the past, the plucked awns were used to make brushes in Japan, and the resulting velvety furs were used to make fur linings .

For the techniques of fur processing, see →  red fox fur and →  silver fox fur .

  • Air gallooning at the sea fox

  • Incision of the leather with an air galloon cutter

  • Cut fox fur

  • Hides stretched to dry in stretching frames

  • Section of the stretched fur from the leather side

  • Sea fox scarf with air-galonization

Sea fox hood trim
“Elegant, slightly curved paletot with a very wide fur trim” from Herpich , Berlin. The version of this broad-tailed coat, made from Electric Seal ( rabbit fur ) with a skunk colored sea fox, cost 330 marks, the original shown here 4500 marks (1910)

Numbers and facts

  • 1864 to 1950
World attack of fox skins
year Skins source
1864 - Lomer
1900 200,000 Larisch / Schmidt
1923/24 400,000 Emil Brass
1930 155,000 IPA - International Fur Exhibition , Leipzig
1950 500,000 Alexander Tuma; Fritz Schmidt
  • In 1890 the price for a sea fox skin (Japanese fox) (red fox skin prices for comparison) was: 3.50 M. (American, dark red fox 12, -); 1900: 6.00 sts (Rotfuchs 37, -), 1910: 17 Marks (Rotfuchs 68, -).
  • For the years 1907–1909 the average incidence of sea fox skins, excluding wild products, was given as 80,000 for Japan, 150,000 for China and 30,000 for Korea. Of the 150,000 pelts sold annually in Shanghai , around a third was consumed in the country itself, a third went to Japan and one to Europe.
  • Before 1931 , 35,000 to 40,000 pelts came from Japan annually, the total amount being around 60,000.
  • In 1935 , 5 “Japanese foxes” were born in England for the first time as the basis of a fur breed, whose parents had been imported from Russia the year before;
  • Before 1944 , the maximum price for natural-colored and colored sea fox skins was RM 55.
  • 1953-1961 , the attack was in game goods in the European part of the former Soviet Union at 30,000 to 70,000 skins.
  • In 1988 there were 70,000 pelts from breeding farms, mainly in Finland, and around 80,000 in Scandinavia in the 2009/10 season .

annotation

  1. ↑ The specified comparative values ​​( coefficients ) are the result of comparative tests by furriers and tobacco shops with regard to the degree of apparent wear and tear. The figures are not unambiguous; in addition to the subjective observations of durability in practice, there are also influences from fur dressing and fur finishing as well as numerous other factors in each individual case . More precise information could only be determined on a scientific basis. The division was made in steps of 10 percent each. The most durable types of fur according to practical experience were set to 100 percent.

See also

Commons : Sea Fox Skins  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Sea fox skin clothing  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Fox fur processing  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Seefuchsfell  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Winckelmann Sales Report , Copenhagen , June 29, 2007, Winckelmann Verlag, Frankfurt / Main
  2. ↑ a b c d Paul Schöps u. a .: The raccoon dog . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. VI / New Series, 1955 No. 2, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Leipzig, pp. 49-53
  3. ↑ a b c d Dr. Heinrich Dathe , Dr. Paul Schöps, with the collaboration of 11 specialists: Fur Animal Atlas . VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena, 1986, pp. 141–144
  4. ↑ a b Friedrich Lorenz: Rauchwarenkunde , 4th edition. Volk und Wissen publishing house, Berlin 1958, pp. 85–86
  5. ↑ a b Dr. M. Gorgas: The raccoon dog and its spread in Europe . In Das Pelzgewerbe 1968 vol. XIX new series No. 1, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Cologne a. a., pp. 9-17
  6. ↑ Heinz Möbius: The raccoon dog (Canis - Nyctereutes procyonoides) as a fur animal . Inaugural dissertation at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig, 1960. P. 73, 78. → Title page .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Max Bachrach: Fur. A Practical Treatise. F Verlag Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York 1936. pp. 314-318 (Eng.)
  8. ↑ Dr. Paul Schöps; Dr. H. Brauckhoff, Stuttgart; K. Häse, Leipzig, Richard König , Frankfurt / Main; W. Straube-Daiber, Stuttgart: The durability coefficients of fur skins in Das Pelzgewerbe , Volume XV, New Series, 1964, No. 2, Hermelin Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin, Frankfurt / Main, Leipzig, Vienna, pp. 56–58
  9. ↑ Paul Schöps, Kurt Häse: The fineness of the hair - the fineness classes . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. VI / New Series, 1955 No. 2, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, pp. 39–40
  10. ↑ a b Dr. Fritz Schmidt: The book of the fur animals and pelts . FC Mayer Verlag, Munich 1970, pp. 218-221
  11. ↑ Willy Scharrmann: Manchurian tobacco products . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 23, June 16, 1939, p. 6.
  12. ↑ Ofra company, Frankfurt am Main, Mr. Hardt
  13. ↑ a b c d e f "OL, Leipzig" .: The main species of the raccoon dog or sea fox . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 60, Leipzig, August 22, 1934, pp. 3-4.
  14. ↑ a b c d e f g h Christian Franke / Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel ´s Rauchwaren-Handbuch 1988/89 . 10. revised and supplemented new edition, Rifra-Verlag Murrhardt, pp. 162–164
  15. ^ Fritz Schmidt: Raccoon dogs (sea foxes) in Eastern Europe . In: Das Pelzgewerbe , Vol. VI / New Series, 1955 No. 1, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin and Leipzig; Pp. 29-29
  16. ↑ sagafurs.com: Grading-type , accessed on February 24, 2012 ( memento of the original from January 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sagafurs.com
  17. ↑ sagafurs.com: Grading finnraccoon color , accessed on February 24, 2012 ( memento of the original from March 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sagafurs.com
  18. ↑ sagafurs.com: Grading finnraccoon clarity , accessed on February 24, 2012 ( memento of the original from January 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sagafurs.com
  19. ↑ sagafurs.com: Grading finnraccoon size , accessed on February 24, 2012 ( memento of the original from January 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sagafurs.com
  20. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Arthur Samet: Pictorial Encyclopedia of Furs . Arthur Samet (Book Division), New York 1950, pp. 311–312 (Eng.)
  21. ↑ a b c d Emil Brass : From the realm of fur . Publishing house of the "Neue Pelzwaren-Zeitung and Kürschner-Zeitung", Berlin 1911, pp. 352, 358–359, 471–474
  22. ^ A b Hermann Deutsch: The modern skinning. Manual for the furrier, dyer, bleacher, cutter and garment maker . A. Hartleben`s Verlag, Vienna and Leipzig, 1930. p. 137
  23. ↑ Paul Cubaeus, "practical furriers in Frankfurt am Main": The whole of Skinning. Thorough textbook with everything you need to know about merchandise, finishing, dyeing and processing of fur skins. A. Hartleben's Verlag, Vienna, Pest, Leipzig 1891, p. 68
  24. ↑ Alexander Tuma: Pelzlexikon XIX. Band Kaninhaar - Mittelbetrieb , Verlag Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1950, keyword "Marderhund"
  25. ↑ Aladar Kölner: Chinese, Manchurian and Japanese fur skins. In: Rauchwarenkunde - Eleven lectures from the goods science of the fur trade . Verlag Der Rauchwarenmarkt, Leipzig 1931, pp. 110–111
  26. ^ "MK": Japanese foxes in England . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 24, Leipzig, August 21, 1936, p. 2.
  27. ^ Friedrich Malm, August Dietzsch: The art of the furrier. Fachbuchverlag Leipzig 1951, p. 64.
  28. ^ Saga Furs: Saga Finnraccoon , accessed February 24, 2012