The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-20
RUSSlA'S IMPERIAL SABLE
TERESIING FA CTS CONCERNING
 A COSTLY
Fur and the Animal That Produces

Fur and the Animal That Produce'
 The sum of seventy-five hundred dol
 lars. the reported cost of a sable ane
 seal coat. recently ordered by we'll
 known woman, seems rather neat
 amount to invest in winter coat; put
 woman with a taste for sable can al
 ways dispose of money with electric ra-
 pidity and ease. The purchase of seV-
 enty-five hundred dollars worth or sa-
 ble wouldn't bring a quiver to the eye
 lashes of a Russian grand duchess ana
 even in this country there are saoie
 cloaks worth more than that amount.
 No other fur, with possible exception
 of the silver fox, represents as great d
 money value as the Russian sable, ana
 as the finest varieties of this fur are
 growing more scarce the price steaolly
 creeps higher. There are innumerapie
 grades of the skins many or them or
 comparatively little value; but the TUT
 is valua ble, in proportion as It Is uarh
 in color, and the sable par excellence,
 the Russian imperial, has depth or
 color that makes the lighter grades LOOK
 cheap and tawdry. Until recently none
 of this fur was allowed to leave Russia
 It was reserved exclusively for the use
 of the Russian imperial family and
 many and deep were the schemes by
 which foreigners tried to infringe upon
 this Russian royal prerogative. Occa-
 sionally some generous high and might i oin rlaoc cn1 tn mako 1
 present of imperial sables to friendly
 monarchs or beautiful women; and
 grand ducal love paths may be traced
 by sable blazings. The two most val
 ued sable cloaks, outside of Russia, are
 souvenirs of love affairs that stirred
 Russian court circles to their depths and furnished all Europe with gossip. | To-day, however, the matter of ob- taining imperial sable is merely ques-
 tion of money; and, as consequence, many of the best skins are finding their way to America. Their number is ne-
 cessarily limited and, as rule, only the best fur houses carry them. But the market is flooded with Russian sa- be so-called, which is in reality an n- feror quality of sable, flight in color
 but so skilfully dyed that it will deceive anyone save an expert The skins are at first, almost as beautiful as the gen. uine articles, but they fade rapidly and soon show themselves to be impostures,
 The Hudson Bay sable is inferior to the Russian in both quality and color. and, while particularly fine dark Hud- son Bay skin is more beautiful than the light and inferior qualities of the Rus sian fur, no Hudson Bay sable ap- breaches the beauty of the genuine inn perial Russian. The latter is of soft brown, utterly unapproachable In any other fur. and of a wonderful fineness and softness; while the former has slight tinge of red in it's hue, and even at it's best IS coarser in quality than its rival.
 The sable is an animal of the marten family, and, in size and form, much re- sembles a weasel. The skins are small, but make up in value what they lack in bulk One of the imperial Russian skins costs anywhere from four to five hundred dollars and a mental calcula- ton of the number of these tiny belts necessary for the making of volumi nous cloak will show the cost of keep ing beautifully warm with sable The most expensive sable cloak ever made in New York cost fifteen thousand dol lars; but a cloak which is now in France and is a testimonial to grand ducal ardor, is valued at four times that sum. A fine silver fox pelt is worth about fourteen hundred dollars, but as this skin is three times the size of a 1 sable skin, the two are nearly of the same value; and, while the silver fox is wonderfully beautiful, it is used chiefly for trimmings. Sable, therefore, in it's | own sphere, has literally no rival. The silver fox Is even more rare than sable, | only about two thousand of the skins being secured annually; but, while the 1 of sable belts obtained each | year is enormous, the percentage of | real Russian imperial skins Is so small | as to render them the most scarce of | furs
 After the silver fox, the only other fur ranking with Russian sable in value is the sea otter, which is almost black in color and often sprinkled with silver hairs, It Is rising in value at a more rapid rate than any other fur, owing to the increasing scarcity of the sea otter, which is one of the animals swiftly and surely nearing extinction. For that matter all good furs are becoming more and more expensive, The Alaska seal catch has shrunk to such an extent that probably not more than five hundred genuine Alaska seal pelts will come into the country this year. though innumer- able inferior qualities of seal, carefully , 1octored will be sold as first quality fur. Chinchllla, which comes closely behind sable, silver fox and sea otter in point of value, is becoming exceedingly scarce in Chili, where the best skins are obtained. Apparently the services of hose good people who are waging war n defense of the birds should be enlist d in behalf of the fur-bearing animals. One fur-bearing animal, however, has n recent years received more or less of holiday, and has been able to in- ;rease and multiply in peace Ermine, 'ormerly monopolzed by the royal antilles of Europe, found its way into ( he general market and promptly lost 'aste. For years 1t has been compara- lively unpopular; but since the last { lrawing- the fur has taken a lew lease of life, wlich confers upon { he animal a new prospect of death and 1 he fiat has gone forth that ermine is ( 0 soar nightly in favor and in price, Jew York Sun.