Blue fox fur
The moulting process often begins towards the end of the rut period and is particularly visible on the coats of pregnant females.
The late summer pelts are lighter on the sides, belly and legs, while the dark gray shade remains on the neck, shoulders and back, where it creates a cross-like pattern.
[2] In 1960, the first cases of white foxes being born in Poland were recorded, and their systematic breeding was pursued further.
After just a few days, the two mutations were easy to distinguish, one remained pure white, the other had the characteristic markings and color of the platinum fox.
[3] Farmed blue foxes have a completely different hair structure to their wild ancestors.
[4] In the trade, individuals caught in the wild are divided according to their origin:[5] The durability coefficient for fine fox fur is given as 50 to 60 percent.
[2] General hunting and trapping bans for arctic foxes have existed in Sweden since 1928, in Norway and Finland since 1930.
[1] The fur trader Stepan Glotov managed to reach the coast of Alaska via the islands of Unalaska and Umnak in 1759.
[13][14] In 1911, Emil Brass reported on blue foxes on the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George, among others.
About 3000 to 4000 blue foxes from the Alaskan coast are now traded to London every year, but this number is expected to increase considerably soon.
The first group was formed by the islands southeast of Alaska or the Alexander Archipelago; the second group was on Prince William Sound, the third in Lower Cook Inlet, the fourth in the Kodiak-Afognak District, the fifth on the Alaska Peninsula itself and the sixth on the Aleutian Islands.
"[16] In parts of northern America, blue fox pelts were still “almost a kind of fur money in a barter trade with the native Eskimos” around 1900.
[12] Today, the furs come mainly from Scandinavia, Poland, the former Soviet Union area and North America.
Its color ranges from very light to deep dark blue or blue-grey with a white or strongly blue-toned undercoat, and a mostly widespread silvering completes the soft, silky character of this coat."
[21] High-quality and large blue fox pelts come from Poland, they are similar to the good Norwegian ones.
[5] As with other foxes, the dressing is carried out with the fur removed in a rounded manner and not cut open.
Single dyeings in plain colors and natural tones as well as all fancy shades up to black can be produced as desired.
For middle range shades using metal complex dyes, the required heat resistance is achieved by chrome tanning of leather.
Dark shades can be produced with good coverage using oxidation dyes, usually based on a chrome potash stain.
In Western Europe, the pelts are still mainly used for trimmings on garments and small items, until around the 1970s more frequently, today still occasionally for coats and jackets, and since the introduction of the fur sewing machine before 1900, often in the fur-saving taping technique.
This corresponds approximately to a fur material for a slightly flared coat in European size 46 (as of 2014).
The maximum and minimum fur amount can result from the different sizes of the sexes of the animals, the age groups and their origin.
The main place for recycling the fur waste produced in Europe is Kastoria in Greece and the smaller town of Siatista nearby.
Most of these semi-finished products are re-exported and then made into fur linings, jackets, coats and trimmings.
