Not all stuffed, mounted animals are created equal when it comes to secondhand market

MINNEAPOLIS – Tom Dvorak cannot bear to throw away his late father’s prized possessions: the mounted heads of a white-tailed deer taken in Illinois and a mule deer bagged in the wilds of Wyoming. Dvorak remembers how his father would talk about hunting the two bucks.

“You can’t keep them all, but it’s difficult to let go of heads like this,” he said. “I know to my dad they meant a lot.”

But Dvorak does not have room for them in his Mendota Heights home, because he has collected plenty of trophies himself. Those include a northern pike, bear mount and half dozen buck heads.

He has been trying to sell the two mounts, fur fraying around the ears, for months for about $500. Though he would also be happy to give them away.

“I’d rather have someone enjoy them than having them in a closet somewhere,” Dvorak said. “Unfortunately, there’s so many mounts, I think you’ll find a lot of taxidermy ends up in the dumpster.”

Selling stuffed wildlife is not as simple as listing an old toaster or a gaming console. Restrictions on the sale of wildlife mean some secondhand sellers will not allow it. Facebook Marketplace, which is ranked by Statista as the second most popular site for used goods in the United States after eBay, bans all taxidermy from its platform.

Plus there is a surplus of some animals, like white-tailed deer, on the secondhand market.

Many people end up trying to sell their family’s old buck heads on the secondhand market, said Aaron Reiling, Minnesota Taxidermy Guild president, which has more than 100 members.

The average cost for a hunter to get a shoulder mount of a deer made is between $1,100 and $1,500, Reiling said. The average seller would be lucky to get half that on the secondhand market, he said.

“Selling taxidermy, it means a lot more to the person who harvested it,” Reiling said. “Some (old mounts) are lost, forgotten or passed down as a family heirloom.”

Last year, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources recorded 170,679 deer harvested, with about 101,000 being antlered bucks in the state. Some fraction of that number will be turned into taxidermied mounts.

Nationwide, taxidermy is a growing trade that employs more than 6,000 people and is an estimated $800 million industry, according to Forbes.

What it’s worth

The value of the mount depends on many factors, including quality of the taxidermy and type of animal, said Tony Sheda, who sells secondhand taxidermy out of his shop, Little Tony’s Trading Post. Mounted animals like bears and moose are highly sought after as decoration for homes and cabins.

But the business of taxidermy is complicated. Taxidermied migratory birds are worthless since it is illegal to sell, purchase and transport them. Taxidermied polar bears can only be sold if they were made before 1972. In Wisconsin, it is illegal to sell bear claws and skulls.

Sheda, who finds much of his inventory through estate sales, his booth at the Minnesota State Fair and word of mouth, said white-tailed deer mounts are easy to come by. Even if the piece is of high quality, deer mounts are not worth as much due to the sheer quantity on the secondhand market. He has a pile of deer mounts at his shop in Wrenshall.

The true gems are the ones that have irregular features, like an 18-point buck that has one point growing downward instead of upward like the rest. That is listed at $3,000 on Sheda’s eBay website.

But there is a reliable market out there for deer mounts, Sheda said. It includes bar owners and non-hunters who want to decorate their cabins, especially in states that do not have white-tailed deer.

“A lot of people would ask why would you ever want that, you didn’t shoot it,” Sheda said. “I ask them how many paintings do you have? Taxidermy is art.”

Bad taxidermy

Then there are sellers, like Adam DeJarlais, who collect weird taxidermy.

There is the one of a mongoose fighting a snake and another of a fox with pleading eyes. Then there is the bear dressed up with a red jacket and black hat holding a sign that says “open” and another wearing a train conductor’s uniform.

“I have a couple of roe deer right now who look like they just woke up and they’re cranky,” he said. “It’s like, well that taxidermist missed the mark or maybe the only roe deer he had seen were cranky.”

The “bad” taxidermy he buys to sell at the shop are ones that bring joy to people, he said. Besides selling stuffed specimens to collectors and artists who create their own artwork, he also rents pieces out to photographers who need props and the American Swedish Institute for its annual holiday party.

When DeJarlais sells a piece, sometimes he ends up buying it back years later. Take the albino white-tailed deer, currently dressed up with a ballerina tutu and a crown, in his shop.

He sold it to a customer who used it as a prop in a book. Later, it was given back to DeJarlais when the owner was done with the project.

“People will come back around and say ‘You sold this to me, I thought you might want to have a second chance at it,’ ” he said.

Dvorak is set on finding his father’s mounts new homes. He also does not want his children to feel like they have to preserve his trophies after he dies.

“I tell them live your life, don’t feel like you’ve got to hang onto the stuff,” he said. “If you don’t want it, try to sell it or give it away instead of throwing it out.”