I live in Illinois, I was wondering what the going rate for a fish is. Is it so much per inch?
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I think you will find it is mostly by the inch and it varies depending on the taxidermist. Usually newbies charge less and more experienced taxidermists that put out better quality charge more.
Typically you get what you pay for but I have seen some high priced stuff I wouldn't want hanging in my house because the quality was so mediocre.
So what would a beginner charge. On a real fish and a replica.
I think the best approach would be to do a cost and time analyis and go from there. Figure out how much profit you can sacrifice at first as you build your business and gradually raise your prices.
Beginners in my are start out at about $6.00 per inch for both skin mounts and repros.
There is a lot of disagreement on this and some established taxidermists will accuse you of taking customers away from them with your lower prices, but it's doubtful at first your quality can get top dollar. At least that's my opinion.
I started mounting fish for customers a few months ago. I worked with a taxidermist in my area she told me to start out at $100.00 flat. she has been doing taxidermy here for 30 years plus and is getting ready to retire soon she is showing me the ropes and sending me lots of fish customers I have mounted 12 fish so far mostly bass I live in western Ky. so bass bluegill and crappie are about it for the fish mounting buisness but I am having a great time learning and making a litttle money too. The taxidermist in this area are not even close in there pricing fish range from 8 to 12 $ per inch to $180 flat.. Price at a very resonable rate and you will get plenty of fish to practice on good luck...
"get plenty of fish to PRACTICE on". That's not a good thing. You don't want to be "practicing" on customer's fish. Customer's come to us - the professional taxidermist to get (hopefully) a quality job done. In fact, I didn't even practice on my friends fish when I first started out. I worked on my own fish solely for two years until I felt good enough to start charging money. At which point I was able to start out a couple of bucks an inch MORE than any taxidemrmist around me. The problem with "practicing" on friends mounts is now THAT work is out there and potentially representative of your future work. Others will see it. I shudder to think of the doo-doo I created my first year I was learning. It could do far more harm in the long run than the few bucks you're earning now. Just my opinion...
at a lower price than the going rate. They got what they paid for and I got practice. I think you may find that this is not that common when you first start out. But true I wouldn't want to see some of that stuff anymore!
I meant to say uncommon when I said common. That's what happens when you fingers move faster than your brain