It varied by season and the whims of fashion going on at the time. For a long time in the 1800's, a beaver hat was the mark of a distinguished gentleman, and everyone wanted one. A finished hat could be had for about $30 prior to 1850, so raw pelt prices depended on the finished goods price. In general, beaver and otter were the most desireable pelts, and in the 1870-1880's they would go for about $6 U.S. dollars a pelt. Pelts were actually sold by the pound, at about $4 a pound, and a full pelt usually averaged 1.5 lbs, hence the $6 a pelt norm. All the other animal pelts were on a sliding scale of something less than this. Raccoon pelts averaged about $1.25 after 1850. Frequently though, pelts weren't sold for cash at all, they were sold in barter to obtain something else, like food, or cloth, or rifles and ammunition. For these kinds of transactions, there weren't any written price averages, each location did their own trading and the owners kept their price schedules in their heads.
