79 darker tint along the back. The skins range from £15 up to £^0, which latter is about half the price of the best Russian sable. Then come the lighter Russian sables, that are artificially " shaded " or topped, and which cost from £^ a skin upwards ; and even cheaper are the Kolinski sables, which by nature are bright yellow, but are dyed to resemble Russian sables in colour. For about ;^8o to ;£ioo a short coat or cape of " shaded " sable may be obtained. This, although it can- not vie with one made of skins worth £80 apiece, yet looks al- most as well as medium quality Russian skins priced at £^0 each, and, on the whole, better than the light Russian sables sold in their natural colour at £8 or ;^io apiece. A first-rate authority declares that the price of the best Russian sable has risen at least 75 per cent, during the last few years ; and it bids fair to go higher, as the supply seems to fall short of the de- mand. In a luxurious age, sable has become a necessity. SECRETS OF THE FUR TRADE The fur trade has some interesting se- crets. There is a skilful method of working sable and other small skins of the same de- scription. By this means what looks like one large skin can be made out of two or three small ones. The skins are first carefully matched, and then almost cut to pieces. The bits arc afterwards joined again, all the necks put together Uke one large neck, all the centre parts like one large centre, and, lastly, all the tails are formed into one thick tail. When thus joined up the effect is marvellous, and it has all the appearance of one big skin to the uninitiated. Then the " shading " or " topping " of fur is also an admitted process. " Shading " does not mean that the entire fur is dyed, but that the tips of the hair are lightly brushed OA-er with a dye which gives a darker colour. If expense is an object, there is no A sable coat OHMS need to avoid " shaded " sables. The skins are adorned, not falsified. FRAUDS AND HOW TO DETECT THEM ^^ Frauds in the fur trade consist in selling " shaded " skins as natural skins, or selling substitutes under a false name, and such frauds are most often applied to one of the most costly of all furs — the darkest Russian sable. Besides darken- ing the over-hair, white badger hairs are either gummed in, or drawn through the pelt with a needle, so as to give the effect of the silvery over- hairs, which appear here and there in the finer grades of Russian sable. An expert has given some simple tests which will enable an amateur to detect the grosser counterfeits. One test is to double the skin over, with the fur outwards, and to look through the ridge of over-hair towards bright sunlight. The tips of the over-hair in both natural and " shaded " skins are darker than the lower part of the hair, so in looking at them in this way one perceives a high-water mark, half way from hide to tip, where the colour suddenly darkens. ARTIFICIALLY " SHADED " SKINS In the artificially " shaded " skin this high-water mark is an absolutely straight line, for the dye has been evenly brushed along the surface of the over-hair, and un- less the tips are dark- ened one by one — which is practically impossible — the result must, of course, be uniform. Where the darkness of the tips is natural the mark is, however, broken by a series of curves and lines. Another test is to pluck out a few of the blackest hairs and dip them into a strong acid. Natural sable hairs will fade to a lighter shade, just as would hair from the human head ; but in the case of any dye now in use it is probable that the acid would not merely fade the tips of the dyed hair, but would bring out a tinge of green or orange-
