{
  "schema": "https://archive.neruda-archives.org/files/context/public-context-v1.schema.json",
  "identifier": "NRA-L-000026",
  "language": "en",
  "status": "published",
  "title": "A fur consignment and a London price current",
  "deck": "Commercial routes, market information and the limits of historical fur names",
  "reviewed_on": "2026-07-29",
  "version": "1.0",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "From Münster to Paris",
      "paragraphs": [
        {
          "text": "On 26 October 1819, B. Hötte Söhne of Münster informed Guillaume Gallien fils & Co in Paris that a small waxed-cloth package marked F. M. had been sent through Em. Müller in Pforzheim. The letter describes its contents as ten peaux de loups marins and records the postal route 'Prusse par Givet'; a Paris marking is dated 4 November.",
          "sources": [
            1
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "The enclosed market list",
      "paragraphs": [
        {
          "text": "The letter encloses a prix-courant said to derive from the latest public sale in London. It records prices in shillings and pence for numerous kinds of fur and notes a drawback for some entries. The surviving document does not identify the auction organizer or establish the exact customs regime behind every deduction.",
          "sources": [
            1
          ]
        },
        {
          "text": "London public sales formed part of a wider international fur market linking North American supply, British auction and merchant networks, and continental processing and resale. That background explains the commercial usefulness of the price current, but it does not justify attributing this particular sale to the Hudson's Bay Company.",
          "sources": [
            1,
            2,
            3
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "Trade names and finished goods",
      "paragraphs": [
        {
          "text": "The document offers blue and white foxes, hamster linings and squirrel-belly linings processed at Weißenfels, stating 15 écus for blue goods and 9 écus for white. Historical trade labels in the price list are preserved as commercial vocabulary; uncertain readings are not forced into modern zoological identifications.",
          "sources": [
            1
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "evidence_limits": [
    {
      "text": "The organizer of the London sale, the precise meaning of every drawback and the conversion implied by the stated écus price remain unresolved. Several trade names and one numerical notation in the price current are uncertain. The Oxford and EH.Net sources provide general market context only and do not identify this consignment or auction.",
      "sources": [
        1,
        2,
        3
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "source-1",
      "kind": "Primary source · manuscript and enclosure",
      "citation": "Neruda Archives, NRA-L-000026, digital images of the letter, postal markings and enclosed London price current.",
      "url": "https://archive.neruda-archives.org/NRA-L-000026",
      "link_text": "View the archive record",
      "support": "Supports the consignment, route, recipients, goods, prices and wording of the price current."
    },
    {
      "id": "source-2",
      "kind": "Scholarly overview",
      "citation": "Jason Saldanha, James Haworth and Christopher McKenna, 'The Hudson's Bay Company: Royal Charters, Rivalries and Luxury Hats in the North American Fur Trade', Oxford Centre for Global History.",
      "url": "https://globalcapitalism.history.ox.ac.uk/10-hudsons-bay-company-royal-charters-rivalries-and-luxury-hats-north-american-fur-trade",
      "link_text": "Read the overview",
      "support": "Provides general background on British and North American fur-trade networks."
    },
    {
      "id": "source-3",
      "kind": "Scholarly overview",
      "citation": "Ann M. Carlos and Frank D. Lewis, 'The Economic History of the Fur Trade: 1670 to 1870', EH.Net Encyclopedia.",
      "url": "https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-history-of-the-fur-trade-1670-to-1870/",
      "link_text": "Read the overview",
      "support": "Provides economic context for the international fur trade and market organization."
    }
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "NRA-L-000026-claim-01",
      "statement": "The letter records a fur consignment routed from Münster toward Paris through Pforzheim and Givet.",
      "evidence_type": "stated_in_document",
      "certainty": "documentary",
      "source_ids": [
        "source-1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "NRA-L-000026-claim-02",
      "statement": "The enclosure presents itself as a price current from a recent public sale in London.",
      "evidence_type": "stated_in_document",
      "certainty": "documentary",
      "source_ids": [
        "source-1"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "NRA-L-000026-claim-03",
      "statement": "The surviving document does not identify the auction as a Hudson's Bay Company sale.",
      "evidence_type": "unresolved",
      "certainty": "open",
      "source_ids": [
        "source-1",
        "source-2",
        "source-3"
      ]
    },
    {
      "id": "NRA-L-000026-claim-04",
      "statement": "Some historical trade names and numerical notations remain uncertain.",
      "evidence_type": "unresolved",
      "certainty": "partly_uncertain",
      "source_ids": [
        "source-1"
      ]
    }
  ]
}