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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To sell my mums fur coats??

225 replies

TheCalmingManatee · 23/09/2012 17:20

They are real fur (im not sure what they are, i think there are a couple of rabbit so less value) all vintage, she has five of them Shock I haven't a clue where she got them from, she wouldn't have bought them new, they are at least 40 years old.

Now I am categorically anti-fur, have taken part in demos etc in my past. And a rather questionable sit in in a fur department of a posh department store in my rebellious youth Blush So, i really don't want to be supporting the fur-trade in any way shape or form. But i have noticed that there seems to be a bit of a revival for vintage fur coats.

Yesterday whilst visiting a collectors fair i noticed coats similar to my mother's for £500, you could have knocked me over wiht a feather. I asked the guy if the woman selling them (she wasn't there) was interested in buying fur and he said she was. I have spoken to my mum and she is interested, well she had actually asked me to take them to the charity shop for her a couple of months back.

AIBU to think i could get a reasonable sum for these? I would never myself wear a fur coat, vintage or otherwise and i would imagine that many other people would feel the same way as i do. I would be (on my mums behalf - but actually im willing to bet she would share the pickings!) very VERY happy to get £200 each for the coats, if she is selling them for 5!!!!

I have an underlying feeling that im mad though!

OP posts:
Rowanhart · 23/09/2012 21:48

Comparing an animal thts been dead for decades with a child is ridiculous.

As are the blood money comments.

Is reselling leather shoes profiteering from blood money? I recently bought a leather suitcase from the forties. Is that?

GoldShip · 23/09/2012 21:48

It didn't 'give' its life. It's life was taken away for it. I don't respect it, because its an horrific product. It's hardly like the animal was a willing sacrifice.

I'd rather they didn't exist if they are only existing to be cruelly killed and used to make profit. It is no life.

Original poster
TheCalmingManatee · 23/09/2012 21:49

Ah sorry, but it greenhill, really?? Farming the animals is far worse than taking wild ones.

I just cannot see how selling fur coats that my very working class mother owns, that she may have inherited from my nan (but she was a gypsy so i don't know about her being able to afford fur) or somehow got second hand is going to promote the fur trade. People who buy vintage fur are not buying it because they can't afford new fur, there are excellent faux furs on the market for folks who maybe cant afford the real thing or would rather not wear it. People who buy vintage want vintage clothes

The fur trade is dispicable, i stand by that but my selling my mothers coats rather than destroying them is not going to make one jot of difference to it.

OP posts:
GoldShip · 23/09/2012 21:49

Rowan - no it isn't ridiculous. I'm saying how something beautiful can become something horrible. Which is what fur is, horrible when it is not attached to the animal it belongs to.

Original poster
TheCalmingManatee · 23/09/2012 21:52

All those of you who are saying that selling these coats supports the fur trade, are you saying the same thing of fake fur? that shouldn't be allowed either?

OP posts:
SharpObject · 23/09/2012 21:54

I'm also in the south east and have an antique market with a vintage shop (as well as a worn once wedding dress shop which is heaven and I can spend hours dreaming in that tiny little shop)

I am currently working with the vintage shop owner in selling my grandmothers fur coats and would happily pass on details if anyone would like them, we haven't got to the cash for sale price yet but the jackets (not full coats) sell for £200 + in the shop and I have my eye on a lovely retro office suit plus lots of gorgeous handbags....

GoldShip · 23/09/2012 21:55

No because fake fur is there because people don't want to wear real (and cheaper) Confused I can see the point you're getting at but no...

The point is selling it on keeps fur current. And who's to say someone will buy yours, really like it and go on to buy a new modern one?

MidoriKobayashi · 23/09/2012 21:59

I became vegetarian as an adult, therefore I sold some leather bags and shoes as I no longer wanted to wear them. I see no difference between that and you selling the fur coats. I don't think it would be more ethically sound to add the coats to landfill/ burn them than to sell them to someone who would actually get some use out of them.

Rowanhart · 23/09/2012 22:01

At last Midori. Some sense.

solidgoldbrass · 23/09/2012 22:02

I sold my grandmother's furs last year and got a few hundred for them OP, and that was on Ebay. I have no regrets or guilt whatsoever and this thread is an amusing reminder that there's few people wankier, dumber, more illogical and self-righteous than an anti-fur activist.

GoldShip · 23/09/2012 22:05

Was wondering how long it'd be before the name calling started.

If caring for the wellfair of animals makes me all those things then I'm proud of that SGB

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 23/09/2012 22:05

I would never wear real fur - either new or vintage. Partly for ethical reasons, and partly because it gives me the creeps.

However, I'm a little perplexed by some of the posters on this thread. Those of you who oppose the sale of these coats are posting on this forum using computers, laptops and phones which are often manufactured by people (sometimes children) working in horrible conditions for a pittance. The components that make up these products are produced and mined by people working in even worse conditions - in some cases practically slave labour in war zones.

If the OP's mother wants to sell her coats how is she any more unethical than you?

missymoomoomee · 23/09/2012 22:06

Fake fur is for people who really don't support the fur industry and aren't only interested in animal rights until there is money to be made.

I can't believe calming that you have the cheek to say the fur trade is despicable while sitting rubbing your hands with glee at the money to be made from the brutal murder of several animals whether it was 40 years ago or yesterday it still happened and those animals still lived a horrific life and died a horrific death.

Make money all you want but stop trying to put yourself across as a moral person because if you gain from those animals deaths you are not moral at all.

GoldShip · 23/09/2012 22:07

Saskia - what the actual fuck. So I can't be bothered about animals because I'm using an iPhone or something?

Jesus h Christ that is absolute madness.

You can't go through life sourcing ethical things, because it'd take forever. But you can make small steps. Buyin a fur coat, well it's bloody obvious something has suffered to get that coat.

GoldShip · 23/09/2012 22:09

Saying that, I make sure all my beauty products, clothing and food hasn't been made from harming an animal.

sudaname · 23/09/2012 22:10

I read this thread as 'Should l sell my mum for coats ?' Grin

YouMayLogOut · 23/09/2012 22:12

Personally I wouldn't because this is why fur coats still exist in the first place. Because people can make mega bucks from them and people are willing to pay it.

What Goldship said. Or give at least some of the proceeds to an animal charity.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 23/09/2012 22:12

GoldShip No, I'm not saying that - and I think you know I'm not.

I'm saying that we all make our ethical choices. And the sale of vintage fur is a lesser evil than the use of products that involve child slave labour.

In other words: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!

Rowanhart · 23/09/2012 22:13

The link with the iPhone is crazy but the comparison with a child's skins isn't.

Suds name Grin. Yes and skin her to make a Mac...

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 23/09/2012 22:13

But it's ok to buy technological products that harm children?

greenhill · 23/09/2012 22:15

goldship sorry that was supposed to be a comment about the PETA adverts from the 80's that promoted the "dumb bitch on the back of a dumb bitch" while showing well heeled women at fashion shows etc. I'm not belittling your views, or any others, I agree the fur trade is abominable. I also agree that the animal would possibly have preferred not to have existed in the first place. ' given' was a bad choice of word too, it implied choice, which was not what the animal had.

thecalmingmanatee I lived in a working class mining village in the 70's the old ladies were w/c too. The fur coat was considered an investment in those days as it was passed down within families. Or sold on if money was needed immediately. Part of the problem with the fur having been treated so well is that it will outlive us (unless the moths get at it).

I'm not sure if taking from the wild or fur farming is worse: after all dodos were hunted to extinction as they were easy to catch, elephants are murdered for tusks or those grim foot umbrella stands, tigers are killed for spurious aphrodisiacs or rugs.

Also pets such as my cat (a stray, not a pedigree) and all dogs are bred to be exploited for financial gain (pet dealers, pedigree dog shows etc). However they seem to enjoy their lives more than most animals that are considered valuable in other ways (lamb, pork, chicken etc).

GoldShip · 23/09/2012 22:15

And I'm saying it isn't always obvious of a product has been ethically made or not. It it is I'd stay away. A fur coat is obviously unethical.

We're not arguing about every ethical situation anyway. We are talking about animal cruelty here and I'm not going to compare it to child labour

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 23/09/2012 22:15

That comment was to Goldship, not Rowanhart Grin

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 23/09/2012 22:19

GoldShip That's a cop-out. It is widely known that phones, computers etc. are produced using exploitation of both human beings and the environment. You willingly choose to use these products, yet you slate an elderly lady who wants to sell her fur coats because she's skint.

She is doing less harm than you. Arguing to the contrary is hypocritical.

Rowanhart · 23/09/2012 22:20

i'm not going to compare it to child labour...

...but will compare it a child's skin Grin

This is actually becoming quite amusing.