January Auction Sales Summary

Kopenhagen Fur’s first auction of the year has drawn to a close, and we would like to thank all our customers for their support this January.

January was an auction marked by selective buying. While our main market of China bought cautiously, the Korean and Russian markets have been very active together with Europe and especially Turkey.

“It was, as expected, a slow start to the auction season. It’s obvious that China is not ready to buy in the market for the time being, with the majority of goods sold this time being Classic nap (as opposed to Velvet)” says CEO Jesper Lauge Christensen.

All told, Kopenhagen Fur sold one million mink skins this January auction, for an average sales percentage of 30%.  

In general, we see that customers are postponing buying along with the start of their seasonal production, since fewer skins in the value chain means that manufacturers will see shorter overall production cycles.

“The case is that if we look at the dressing companies overall in Southeast Asia as well as over on the manufacturing side in China, it’s kind of overwhelming. For the past many years, the production of mink worldwide has been significantly higher than we see right now, and that means that these factories have built up a huge capacity. So, they don’t need to get started buying this early in the season,” says Christensen.

This is supported by our expectation that the worldwide offering of mink will continue to decline, with the total supply in 2019 expected to be under 40 million skins, with a further 35% drop in 2020.

Our sights are already firmly set on March, with our sale to be held from 19-26 March, where we will offer approximately 5.2 million mink skins along with 2019’s first sale of Norwegian Type Fox and Swakara.

We look forward to seeing you again there!