When choosing a fur coat it is a wise policy to buy the best quality of fur that one can afford to pay for instead of a poor quality of a more expensive fur. One dealer recently gave it as his opinion that a good quality rabbit coat was a better investment than a lower-bracket Hudson seal that might actually cost more.
Durability is very important to the average woman—one doesn't invest in a fur coat every day and it is more than annoying to feel shabby after the first season. Some furs, for instance, have no under-wool Underwool acts very much like the felt which is sometimes put under carpeting—it makes a cushion for the long hairs to rest on and saves them from wear.
Furs that have a good or fair-to-good rating on durability are Persian lamb, natural grey krimmer and krimmer-dyed lamb; natural brown muskrat and some varieties of blended and dyed muskrat, including Hudson seal; beaver and sheared beaver; natural or blended American mink and Eastern and Labrador mink; natural and dyed fitch; fisher; varieties of sea otter now unfortunately almost extinct; dyed and natural skunk; badger; natural, dyed or blended American raccoon; natural and dyed wolf; Alaska seal; monkey.
Probably only ten per cent of the furs now sold closely resemble the original animal. Most of them are dyed or blended. Mink, leopard and fox are usually untouched, but there are ninety separate steps in {making a muskrat skin, say, into the kind of sleek, gleaming Hudson seal that you could wear to a cocktail party. A layer of skin is scraped from the underside of the pelt and the pelt goes into a beating machine and is pounded soft. The back of the fur is greased, natural oils are injected into it and, of course, all impurities are removed. There is any amount of fur impurities are removed. But don't worry about fur-wisdom—when you are buying a fur coat go to a reputable dealer.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.