By Fur Types

Fox Fur: One Family, Many Different Materials

Fox fur is the largest family in the Arctic Store taxonomy, but the word “fox” covers materials that can look and behave very differently. In Russian furrier practice, fox and Arctic fox — лиса and песец — are distinct working materials even though English trade language often groups both under “fox.”

Silver Fox, Polar (Blue) Fox, Arctic (Shadow) Fox, Blue Frost & Silver Grey Foxes, Gold, Gold Cross & Fire Foxes, Red Foxes and Rare Foxes differ in structure, density, movement and coloration. A finished black, gold, silver or blue shade alone does not identify the underlying fur.

Mink Fur

Mink has a shorter, closer and more compact appearance than long-haired fox-type furs, making it useful where the design benefits from controlled volume. Farmed and wild mink can also differ in size, uniformity and visual character; deeper comparisons belong on the Mink page itself.

Beaver Fur

Beaver is dense and durable, reflecting an animal adapted to frequent contact with water. Full, unsheared fur keeps more of the natural guard-hair character, while sheared beaver creates a shorter, smoother surface. The two presentations behave and look distinctly different.

Sable and Marten

Sable and marten are closely related but should not be treated as interchangeable names. Sable is a classic prestige material of the Russian fur tradition; natural color, silvering, movement, pelt size and the difficulty of matching several skins into one coherent piece all matter.

Marten has its own character and regional history. Their ranges overlap, and a natural sable–marten hybrid known as a kidus can occur. Deeper questions of sourcing and large multi-pelt matching belong on the Sable · Marten page.

Russian Raccoon and Canadian Raccoon

Russian Raccoon and Canadian Raccoon are not two grades of the same animal. Russian Raccoon is Arctic Store's trade name for tanuki / raccoon dog, a canid known for long guard hair and strong volume.

Canadian Raccoon refers to the North American raccoon, a different species from a different animal family, with another balance of pile, guard hair and tone. Neither should be described as the “real” or “not real” raccoon; they are simply different natural furs.

Karakul, Astrakhan, Sheepskin and Shearling

Karakul and Astrakhan and Sheepskin & Shearling all come from sheep or lamb materials but are not the same retail category. Karakul is chosen for its distinctive curl and moiré pattern; shearling keeps the wool on dressed skin, usually cut to a more even length.

Lynx Fur

Lynx is valued for its extraordinary natural pattern. The pale belly with defined dark spots is especially prized, and placement matters because a finished piece must combine compatible zones into one coherent composition.

Why Workshop Matching Still Matters

Auction grading is only the first level of selection. A workshop still has to decide which individual pelts truly belong together in one piece, reading differences in hair direction, density, color and markings.

This matters especially for Arctic Store made-to-order work based on a photographed reference. Natural fur is never perfectly identical from one animal to another, so repeatability has to be created by selection, cutting and placement rather than identical industrial raw material.