A single sentence sent me gasping in apoplexy, but I’ll save the tantrum until I get another corresponding data point.
I’d suggest you do the same.
Denver’s WestWord News mentions in today’s article on the feather trade, suggests Thomas Whiting of Whiting farms has stopped selling feathers to fly shops …
When demand for his feathers intensified, Whiting initially held off on selling to the fashion world, preferring to save the saddle feathers for his regular clients. But then he discovered that many fly-fishing outlets were buying his feathers at regular prices and then reselling them for crazy sums; those $40 to $80 packages were going for $300 to $500 on eBay, while hair stylists were (and still are) selling feathers at anywhere from $10 to $40 apiece. So Whiting, who had been selling the feathers wholesale for twenty cents each, stopped selling to the fishing stores altogether and began raising prices for the fashionistas.
Non fishermen and certainly non-fly tiers can be easily confused by the reserved words and phrases of our craft, it’s likely the author has taken the quote from poor context.
It’s not surprising that Mr Whiting would want to cut the fly shops out of the loop, especially those that might have been early to the fad, assuring him they were selling to the fly tying public – and were stuffing them onto eBay as quickly as shipments arrived. Most shops vended the capes with the shop account, which would have been obvious to someone browsing feather sales.
Given the economic turmoil, it’s not surprising. In either case let’s hope this was a bit of exaggeration. If Keough Hackle has already sold it’s 2012 harvest, and Whiting removes his roosters from play, you’d better learn to love nymphing … and quick.
So when will you make it public that you are colorizing your Sixth Finger line, ceasing selling to fly shops, tripling your price and catering to the salon trades. Clearly, their need is greater than ours. Oh, and your new blog is Salonselective.plunder?
Look at the service I did the fly fishing world by promoting the hackle-free “mini-hopper” on my blog.
This whole hair thing isn’t just good for those raising hackle roosters, it’s also good for those farming closed-cell foam plants…
there are a couple stories like this floating around. randall knives and bogdan reels sold at “reasonable” prices at one time, then resellers and speculators pumped the prices up. as a consequence the makers raised their prices at the front end since apparently their products were worth the elevated prices others were getting for them.
true or legend? i don’t know. however i suspect i would do the same.
Craig: there is something to that for sure. In his great book “Fishing Bamboo” John Gierach mentions Bob Summers who sold a new rod to a fellow, who in turn sold it to a collector for a profit. When asked how he felt about that, Summers replied that he’d just raised his prices…
Back to feathers: I think Whiting’s flying by the seat of their pants right now. I have a friend who owns a small independent fly shop here in Idaho who cannot get product. Therefore I can’t get product. The big nationally recognized shops claim to be able to get product. In other words no one really knows what the Sam Hill is going on. When the hair fad fades fast, it’ll be interesting to see just how many bridges have been burned. Unfortunately I’m one of those old fashioned guys with weak stomachs and I simply cannot bear the sight of a foam anything knotted to my leader. So for the foreseeable future, I’ll be crawlin’ and weepin’.
I live in a small town in the south – – far from fashion and far from flyfishing. But enough alliteration with effs. A couple of days ago, my wife went to a local place to have her hair “done” and noticed the saddle hackles hanging in the shop, selling for $10 a pop. “Oh,” she says, “my husband has lots and lots of those. He makes bugs to fish with.” I expect to be murdered by hairstylists in a midnight house burglary now. What a way to go.
Had the same problem here for many years,hackle and cape choice were abysmal so I decided to search the web save my money and wait.Luckily it worked I ended up with some brilliant feathers that will do me for years, and the kicker the capes etc were in a shop about 10 miles from me.
As for the hair fad,would not worry its a fad could be chennille next year or (how about some nice dubbing mrs)