So you find your self short of money or you inherited some mounts and you don’t want them or you want to upgrade and sell a older mount to pay for a new one, well here are some tips. If the mount is a special draw animal like a moose,sheep,mt goat then you will find a buyer soon and should get a good price, if its a deer or elk or something average that you can buy the tag over the counter then its going to be a lot tougher. The big thing here is “finding the buyer”. We can all sell something if we can only find the buyer. If you are selling normal game then most buyers are only buying it for the horns,head gear so if its big and makes book then we can ask for some money but if its only your memories and small head gear than you will be lucky to move it at all. African, Asian or the rest of the world trophies, it takes big head gear or very large predator to get a price for it. There is a blue book, so to speak, on mounts but most of them are insurance programs but it will give you a good idea of what they are worth. If they have any CITIES permits-like elephant,rhino,leopard,etc then you must 1st get permission from the USFG for a permit to sell them and then they can only be sold in that state only and if you don’t have any papers on the mount then you can not sell it,legally. Vintage mounts are old and do not even looks like the animal so they are only valved after their head gear.
The best place to start is were the out of state person is to visit on visiting your state or where they are buying property for before the economy went south,everyone coming here to build wanted a moose or buffalo hanging over their fireplace so look at realtors, and then go with interior designers by calling them or emailing pic’s of the mounts with a normal rate so you have room to dicker. There are some sites on the web to sell but I would stay off sites like eBay unless you are not asking much for it . Professional Studios like Capp’s Taxidermy Studio LLC would be able to offer where to sell in that area or other ideas. The newer the mount is, the better to sell and are done up by professional taxidermist like Capp’s then its a plus for then they are build to last and are correct anatomy. Like I said at the 1st part, if its a book animal with big head gear–predators cannot be put in this catagory for the book item is the skull,not the mount. And if its a special or CITIES animal then they are worth some big money but only if you can find the buyer.
If anyone has other ideas that work on where to sell,let me know……Good Luck………
