Fur help please - ermine or rabbit?

[MagsRags]

The previous owner of this 1930s velvet evening jacket described the fur collar as ermine.

I assumed she was mistaken and that it would be rabbit. I have no personal experience with ermine, but as I compare the images and the descriptions of ermine and rabbit in our Fur Resource with my eyes and my fingers, I am now wondering if it is actually ermine?

It is very soft, fairly short, uniform in length, no guard hairs. Underlying skins getting a little crumbly here and there unfortunately.

 

[vintagedevotion]

Based on age and the look/feel, I think it might very well be ermine. Hopefully others will weigh in.

 

[MagsRags]

Thanks, Terri.

 

[Jonathan]

Rabbit should feel softer than ermine. Ermine should feel like mink. Problem is that rabbit is often sheared to emulate ermine. Also, one of the features of ermine is its black tipped tails, so without that feature, I would think this is rabbit sheared to look like ermine.

 

[MagsRags]

one of the features of ermine is its black tipped tails, so without that feature.....

But mink has guard hairs, yes?

I definitely think of the black tipped tails when I picture ermine, but our fur resource has several all-white ermine examples, as well as an all-brown jacket, which I did not expect.

 

[Rue_de_la_Paix]

It looks more like rabbit than ermine, to me.

 

[dollsntrolls]

I think it is sheared rabbit. They feel very, very similar, but while the actual hair on a rabbit feels thinner individually, it is much denser in quantity (both are fantastically butter-y soft). I was reading this and thinking, I should grab some pieces and take a picture. And, then I remembered I have a pile of "notions" behind me, at my desk.

The pure white puffs are rabbit, the two-tone tails are ermine.

 

[Jonathan]

Brown ermine is called summer ermine or stoat (the same animals are white in winter and brown in summer)

 

[MagsRags]

... white in winter and brown in summer

Thanks, I didn't know that.