Viscachafell

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The skins of the Viscacha and the Mountain Viscacha , which live in Bolivia , western Paraguay and the northern and central regions of Argentina , are sold in tobacco shops and processed into furs by furriers ; Both types were recently offered in trade as Viscacha skins. To what extent they are still being traded today is unclear.

Viscachafell (detail)

Field or pampas viscacha

Herder's Conversations-Lexikon from 1854 describes the Viscacha as rabbit-like "with valued fur". Nevertheless, one is certain in the later tobacco products literature that the skins from Argentina and Patagonia only came onto the world market to a significant extent after the First World War , after the strong leather had been cut thinner. Although the animals were shot in large quantities because of their burrowing activity in the pasture areas, they were never a very important article for fur processing because of the thin undercoat, the coarse awns and the not swift leather. In addition, the number of damaged, unusable skins is very high. In 1911 Emil Brass wrote regretfully that all attempts to use the fur for fur purposes had failed because the leather was usually too heavy and thick. And that where the skins could be delivered in the hundreds of thousands and are very cheap at 30 to 50 pfennigs. Until then, the pelts were only sewn together by the Indians for their own use to make primitive pads and blankets. The fur finishing company J. & M. Kassner (Berlin and Leipzig) then gave the fur an opaque color, making it a cheap coat material for the first time. Viscacha skins have been offered in the past from time to time, often dyed in brown shades (muskrat, sable).

The fur length is 47 to 66 cm, the hairy tail is 15 to 20 cm long. This makes them much larger than the chinchillas related to them . Viscachas can be clearly distinguished from chinchillas by the number of toes on the front paws: five in the chinchilla, four in the viscacha. The color varies on the upper side with the habitat from yellowish in sandy regions to dark gray, the belly is white. The undercoat, which is not very dense, is very soft, while the outer hairs are dark and rough mixed with black guide hairs.

Fur structure : 2 to 3 percent of the hair are guide hairs, up to 41 mm long; 25 to 26 percent guard hairs, long and coarse, gray-brown to black. Up to 75 percent are light gray-brown woolen hair.
Durability coefficient for viscacha and chinchillona: 5 to 10 percent
If the fur animals are divided into the hair fineness classes silky, fine, medium-fine, coarse and hard, the viscachehair is classified as medium-fine.
Men's jacket with viscacha fur (2014)

In the tobacco trade, the fur was initially falsely, by today's standards also not very conducive to sales, also offered as capybara or Brazilian capybara , according to Alfred Erler, specialist in South American tobacco products, also zoologically wrong, but sounding better, also as an Argentine badger (1931).

When Viscacha skins were still being made into foot blankets, the price in Argentina was 10 ct. the fur. Having begun her as Bisamfell imitation to use, he rose abruptly to 25 ct. In 1929 the original loose, untanned Viscacha skins already cost 40 to 50 ct. per piece.

Before and around 1930, fur farming developed on a very large scale after astronomical prices had been achieved at auctions, especially for silver foxes. There were also charlatans in Germany who tried to make breeding Viscacha palatable to the uninitiated in order to sell them expensive breeding pairs. A Leipzig fur breeder, who kept a few Viscachas himself, warned his colleagues that, among other reasons, the price of fur in particular was far too low for breeding to be worthwhile: at the best time, when rabbit fur in Germany was 4 to 6 RM and more, there were Viscachafels, and what I expressly emphasize, refined (colored by the refining industry) only between 3.50 and 4.50 RM at most. Today, of course, these prices are far from being achieved .

In 1936, an American tobacco manual noted that Viscachafels are made into so-called fodder ( semi-finished products ) in Germany and England . At the time, the center of panel production in Germany was around Leipzig, at that time a world center of the fur trade (see Brühl (Leipzig) ).

In 1965, the fur consumption for a skin sheet with 30 to 40 skins sufficient for a viscacha coat was specified (so-called coat “body” ). A board with a length of 112 centimeters and an average width of 150 centimeters and an additional sleeve section was used as the basis. This corresponds roughly to a fur material for a slightly exhibited coat of clothing size 46 from 2014. The maximum and minimum fur numbers can result from the different sizes of the sexes of the animals, the age groups and their origin. Depending on the type of fur, the three factors have different effects.

It is used , mostly dyed, for inexpensive trimmings, inner linings and only very rarely for jackets and coats.

Mountain viscacha

"Breakfast cover", covered with Viscachafell. Based on Meret Oppenheim's "Déjeuner en fourrure" ("Breakfast in fur")

There was always only a very limited range of mountain viscachas . At 32 to 40 cm, they are smaller than the field viscacha, plus the long tail with 23 to 32 cm. A characteristic are the ears up to 8 cm long and the long strong whiskers. Depending on the breed and origin (habitat at 3000 to 5000 meters above sea level), size, color and coat structure vary.

According to the tradition, the skins are ash-gray to gray-yellow, often with a dark vertical stripe ( grunt ) in the middle of the coat. The hair sits quite loosely in the leather, it used to be plucked out by the local residents and spun into fine fabrics (according to Prell), as is the case with chinchillas.

The hair is soft and thick, but not as fine and fluttering as that of the chinchilla.

Only the better, more blue-gray qualities of the mountain viscachafell from the higher mountain regions have been used for fur purposes since around 1900. The trade name for it was chinchillona . All other qualities could not be colored chinchilla-like, "they do not take on the color, appear after the same with brightly colored spots, yes sometimes go straight to purple, despite the fact that the best color specialists have tried it".

Before the First World War, the price of mountain viscachafels was 1 paper peso in Buenos Aires and about 2.50 marks in Leipzig. In 1923 the price in Argentina had risen to 3 paper pesos, in Leipzig to 6 to 8 marks; For selected “pure blue” skins up to 20 marks per piece were paid. The total volume at the time "should hardly exceed 10,000 pieces a year for the time being".

In 1988, it was said that the markets of Mendoza , San Juan and Buenos Aires were delivering a maximum of 10,000 pieces a year. Tobacco merchant Alfred Erler spoke of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 pieces per year in 1931.

The use is the same as that of the field viscacha.

Numbers and facts

1921 : “[...] The fur [of the Viscacha] is not to be used for fur purposes. The leather is too thick and heavy, the undercoat too thin. The prices for the rather large skins, 50-60 centimeters, vary between 30 and 50 pfennigs each. "

annotation

  1. ↑ The stated value is the result of comparative testing by experts in the tobacco industry with regard to the degree of apparent wear and tear. The most durable types of fur according to practical experience were set to 100 percent. However, there are numerous unpredictable factors involved. More precise information could only be determined on a scientific basis.

Web links

Commons : Viscachafell  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Viscachafell clothing  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature, individual references

  1. ↑ Herders Conversations-Lexikon , 1854, Volume 5, p. 632.
  2. ^ A b c Emil Brass: From the realm of fur , 1911, publishing house of the "Neue Pelzwaren-Zeitung and Kürschner-Zeitung", Berlin, pp. 613–616, p. 728.
  3. ^ A b Fritz Schmidt : The book of fur animals and fur , 1970, FC Mayer Verlag, Munich, pp. 86-88.
  4. ^ Philipp Manes : The German fur industry and its associations 1900-1940, attempt at a story, Berlin 1941 Volume 3 . Copy of the original manuscript, p. 10 ( → table of contents ).
  5. ↑ a b Friedrich Lorenz: Rauchwarenkunde , 1958. Self-published, Berlin, p. 41.
  6. ↑ Harry Reinhardt Eckardt: The great manual of chinchilla breeding . Verlag Harry Eckardt, Miltenberg / Main 1972, p. 26 → Table of contents .
  7. ↑ Prof. Dr. sc. nat. Dr. med. vet. hc Heinrich Dathe, Berlin; Dr. rer. Paul Schöps. Leipzig with the collaboration of 11 specialists: Fur Animal Atlas , VEB Gustav Fischer Verlag Jena, 1986, p. 111.
  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.
  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. ↑ Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and rough goods . XXI. Tape. Verlag Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1951. Page 237.
  11. ^ Alfred Erler: South American smoking goods , in smoking goods. Eleven lectures from the tobacco trade , Verlag der Rauchwarenmarkt, Leipzig 1931, p. 48.
  12. ^ Kurt Nestler: Tobacco and fur trade . Dr. Max Jänecke Verlagbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1929, p. 34.
  13. ↑ Otto Lindekam: The Viscacha as a fur animal. In: "Der deutsche Pelztierzüchter" No. 18, Munich 1918, pp. 493–494.
  14. ↑ Max Bachrach: Fur. A Practical Treatise. , Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1936. pp. 172-173.
  15. ↑ Paul Schöps among others: The material requirement for fur clothing . In: Das Pelzgewerbe Vol. XVI / New Series 1965 No. 1, Hermelin-Verlag Dr. Paul Schöps, Berlin et al., Pp. 7-12. Note: The information for a body was only made to make the types of fur easier to compare. In fact, bodies were only made for small (up to about muskrat size ) and common types of fur, and also for pieces of fur . The following dimensions for a coat body were taken as a basis: body = height 112 cm, width below 160 cm, width above 140 cm, sleeves = 60 × 140 cm.
  16. ^ Christian Franke / Johanna Kroll: Jury Fränkel's Rauchwaren-Handbuch 1988/89 , 10th revised and supplemented new edition, Rifra-Verlag Murrhardt, pp. 209–210.
  17. ↑ Rud. Bushels: fur animals and pelts . In: Der Rauchwarenmarkt No. 72/73, 29./30. March 1921, p. 4.