[NHCOLL-L:1405] RE: Value for a Bald Eagle

[Rogers, Steve]

Putting a value for insurance purposes on a Mounted Eagle is essentially
impossible other than by previous records of sales. Since it is highly
illegal to do this in the United States, the only way would be to find a
place where it is allowed.  In England there are a number of Taxidermists
who deal with sales and re-sales of older taxidermy pieces, and since laws
are such that if a bird is found dead by a taxidermist, he can mount it and
sell it to the public, a good record can be found in that country.

I would suggest you contact four places. The first person I would contact
would be Christopher Frost, who wrote the book on the History of British
Taxidermy as well as a few others and has been making a living on buying and
selling birds for decades, and keeps meticulous records. Unfortunately he
doesn't have a web cite I could locate. The first cite listed here should be
able to contact him: http://www.victorian-taxidermy.co.uk/. This cite also
sells mounted birds and currently has two Gyr falcons for sale, each for
1250 pounds.  Mike Gadd is currently the best bird taxidermist in England
and has a webcite you could contact him at:
http://www.taxidermy.co.uk/birds.htm . He has sold a Golden Eagle in the
past- see gallery of past work. The fourth possible source of info is from
Ken Everett who also does taxidermy and carries many old Victorian cases for
sale. Contact http://www.twohootstaxidermy.co.uk/ .Has a good record of
values in cases sold, probably including many eagles.

Canadians, to the best of my knowledge, are also able to pick up raptors
found killed by cars, electric lines etc., and have them mounted, but I am
not sure they are able to buy and sell them.

As far as Taxidermy costs. If you wished to have a very good taxidermist
mount an eagle, I would think the cost would be at minimum $1000.00, and for
a world class job at least $2000.00, but many great taxidermists would work
for less since they never had the opportunity to work on that species. So
much depends on the quality of the mount. Even in something as commonplace
as ducks, records on ebay have some sold as low as $20.00 for poor mounts,
but excellent captive raised mounts can be sold as high as $500.00.

Stephen P. Rogers
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA  15213
rogerss at carnegiemuseums.org
Phone: 412-622-3257


-----Original Message-----
From: rich at thewildlifemuseum.org [mailto:rich at thewildlifemuseum.org]
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 2:49 PM
To: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:1402] Value for a Bald Eagle


To short cut a continuing discussion on how values are arrived at, the facts
are this:

The Eagle does not belong to Fish and Wildlife, at least at the time they
are interested in.  They are trying several routes to establish a value for
a bird seized in an enforcement action.  They have the cost of taxidermy,
and they have some black market costs as well from previous cases.  What
they want to know is historically, what have the insurance values assigned
to such objects been?  Not the methods used to calculate a value, as
everyone so far is quite right, there are any number of ways to go about
establishing a value.  But what, in fact, are the values which have been
assigned?

I hope this sharpens the focus!

Thanks!!

Rich White
International Wildlife Museum