Schiaparelli Fur Coat

Hi everyone~
I'm posting about this on my blog because I'm running out of options, but I'm still super excited. Let me tell you the adventure I've been on this past few months with these fur coats. So, I inherited these fur coats from my Grandma Gerry when she passed 3 years ago. She lived in the Glendale Area in California from the 50s until sometime in the 80s. She was a very fashionable lady and also gave me some gorgeous costume jewelry and a beaded handbag that my dad had given her years before, before she died. She really was the type of lady that loved to have nice things. So, when I got these fur coats I really didn't know what to do with them. I don't wear fur, can't ever see myself wearing it, (its high maintenence and I tend to wear just plain ole cotton with maybe a little lycra mixed in! haha), and I'm not really into the idea of killing animals for their furs. In fact, it kinda hurts me to think about how many exotic animals were killed for furs back in the day my fur coats were made. I always think about the pictures where naturalists find skinned dead animals...they'd just leave the carcasses there to rot. Ew, anyway, back to the fun part. Where these furs are antique I'm gonna reconcile myself to the fact that they are not new and I am trying to sell them. Furs need to be conditioned and kept up and I don't like to think of them wasting away and not being enjoyed by people. So, I did google searches after google searches a few months ago, couldn't find any appraisers closer than Hollywood and Scottsdale, AZ. I finally got fed up and looked on the Antiques Roadshow site and found a textiles specialist they had on some of their shows. I emailed her and lo and behold, she emailed back! She gave me a name of a friend of hers in Texas that specialized in furs and then I dropped the ball. I got busy with new jobs and had the attitude of, "these probably aren't something special, so I don't want to bother people", even though I had a sneaking suspicion that this one fur was actually something really rare from not finding it on ebay and stuff. I really couldn't find anything like it! So, months pass and Jason starts saying he's looking on ebay for comps for them. I was kinda irritated because I was frustrated with not finding really ANY info online and the people I had called in AZ and CA were snots. So, I kinda grumbled about it and then got back on the bandwagon. I had Jason take these pictures, I dug out the email address that that textiles lady gave me, and emailed him. This morning I got a reply, (and I emailed him last night), and he said that this one Schiaparelli fur looks like REAL leopard and is HIGHLY sought-after and a collectable! He gave me a price that he had bought one for a few years back and its higher than I originally thought...but I was placing it around that monetary value! SCORE! The other furs are gorgous....I kinda think the black mink is one I'd keep IF I kept one. Its more simple than the others. Its probably only worth a couple hundred bucks though. The only problem is that its illegal to sell furs across state lines and if I were to sell it, the buyer would have to come to visit the area, buy it, then take it home. Or, I could just sell it to some fun boutique in Utah and they can mess with the interstate fur selling nonsense. I don't blame the government for cracking down on fur trading because it cracks down on a little bit of poaching for furs, but geeze! I'm an honest person, trying to get a professional opinion on my furs and I don't want to haul them across country! Anyway, if any of you know of someone who is interested in any of these furs, send them my way, will ya? I'll keep trying to find someone local to sell these to, but I may just have to take them to Hollywood....darn....a trip to Hollywood....but then, if I did take them there for an appraisal, I couldn't sell them, could I? Well, its still fun to know that I have something thats worth money and I didn't even know it! WAHOO!