Sitka Gear Turkey Tool Belt

Fair Price For Selling Antlers?

Fur fish and game lists hard brown moose and deer at $10-$12 a pound more paid for premium sides. $14-$16 for brown elk antler. I’m no antler buyer just what I’ve seen.
 
Fur fish and game lists hard brown moose and deer at $10-$12 a pound more paid for premium sides. $14-$16 for brown elk antler. I’m no antler buyer just what I’ve seen.
How do you determine "hard brown"? Also any idea what a sheep horn would go for? Thanks.
 
No idea on sheep horns. I’m assuming just that years sheds or kills that have not sat in the sun and weather and turned white.
 
brown just means hard horn, I.e. no cracking or deteriorating has started due to it laying on the ground too long. Typically if a horn has turned white, deterioration has started and thus why they use the term "brown".
 
I posted locally $25 for each small moose antler, $25 for each caribou antler, $50 for each large moose antler.
Hoping to sell about half of them.
It is common up here to nail a moose antler on a tree at the driveway entrance with the home address.
My wife is an artist, so she used some with birch bark and fused glass:

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I believe brown implies that it is fresh. Not a few years old. Moose antlers made great dog chews. Caribou are a bit softer. Fresh moose sold as a chew demands up to 30$ a pound.
 
How much should I try and get for these browns? Reading everything from 10-20$’s/lb. 36 lbs of brown elk 10lbs of deer browns. IMG_0265.jpegIMG_0267.jpeg
 
The antler market is much softer in AK than deer/elk in the L48, shipping eats into the cost, and moose is not nearly as desirable for dog chews. Retail at the pet store isn't wholesale purchase. Because they sell it for $30 doesn't mean you get anywhere near that. Those antlers get cut up, and resold, then resold again at the pet store. That's why they are 3x the price, everyone makes money off the guys doing the work picking them up.

I sold my first antler in 1990 and have been picking them up and selling them since. I worked for and am close friends with one of the largest antler buyers in the world. AK prices are about $2-4 less than L48. Figure $8-10 for brown, $5-8 for hard white if they're in good shape lower end if rotten/stained badly. Bou are hard to sell, they are the least desirable of all antlers. They mold/rot really fast in the field. Brown bou antlers are really hard to get. They are polished and brown from Sept 15 until they shed in the winter. If you find them right when the snow melts they'll still be brown, but a month later they will be faded and starting to mold.

eBay is your friend with those smaller moose, they will fetch higher prices and are easier to sell because small moose is more desirable in the craft market and easier to ship. Shipping will off set your sale price compared to the L48 market.

Dall horns sell for 20-30/lb. There are a few carvers that will by them, but they usually sell pretty easily. You might be able to find a reproduction skull and mount them and sell them that way and make a bit more, but there isn't a huge market for sheep horns. Most carvers in AK are not that great, so their carvings don't sell for top dollar, so they can't or don't pay much.

I sold some nice ones last year for $12/lb but they were XL fresh brown with no chews 20-22lb antlers. I had lots of tire kickers offering more, but none came through. Nice sets sell for more.

You can beat local buyer prices, but you'll have to work at it. There are a couple buyers in FBX.

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Sold these a few years ago, I averaged $10lb, but kept the bit stander, and the bottom right at that price.

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I got $18/lb for brown elk and 12-14 for deer in 2022. I sold just a few this year and prices were down quite a bit to a number I don’t remember. My buyer said the market was completely flooded, especially the dog chew side of it and his dog chew buyers were selling stuff at half price
 
I got $18/lb for brown elk and 12-14 for deer in 2022. I sold just a few this year and prices were down quite a bit to a number I don’t remember. My buyer said the market was completely flooded, especially the dog chew side of it and his dog chew buyers were selling stuff at half price
Yep, fads have come and gone with antlers. It was the Korean market at first (still there but smaller) then mad cow and CWD hit that, then it was furniture and craft market, toss in the collectors in there for some specialty stuff, and the latest is dog chews. When I started I got $18-20 for brown elk in the early 90s, then it went to $6, then bounced back up. Mule deer used to fetch more than all of it for a while when the craft market was strong.

I still can't believe that people buy really hard pieces of antler (elk brow tines and main beams) for their dogs to chew on. Its so hard on their teeth. I also think the economy has really shifted, and people aren't willing to spend $30 for a dog chew. The end market is closer to $50-60/lb.
 
Yep, fads have come and gone with antlers. It was the Korean market at first (still there but smaller) then mad cow and CWD hit that, then it was furniture and craft market, toss in the collectors in there for some specialty stuff, and the latest is dog chews. When I started I got $18-20 for brown elk in the early 90s, then it went to $6, then bounced back up. Mule deer used to fetch more than all of it for a while when the craft market was strong.

I still can't believe that people buy really hard pieces of antler (elk brow tines and main beams) for their dogs to chew on. Its so hard on their teeth. I also think the economy has really shifted, and people aren't willing to spend $30 for a dog chew. The end market is closer to $50-60/lb.
On E-Bay I see moose antlers for up to $1,000 per set.
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