Hello possum!

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SEPTEMBER 2016 | Heather Summers

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WHAT DO you have hiding in the back of your closet? Don’t be too hasty when de-cluttering, you could be harbouring an item of significance to social history.

This is what John and Sharon Cunningham found when downsizing the family home. A black-brush possum skin coat with matching hat, which John had commissioned for his wife from skins he had trapped himself.

Unable to find a home for the coat among family members, it had a narrow escape from the charity bin. It was only through a chance encounter with a publication from the Mountain Hut Preservation Society, prompting a phone call from John, that the coat came to the attention of Roger Nutting and the Great Western Tiers Visitor Centre, where it is now on permanent display.

Initially wanting to make a possum skin bed spread for his then fiancé, now wife (they have been married for 45 years), John decided to concentrate his efforts on trapping the black-brush in order to make the coat, needing 28 pelts in all, including two for the hat. This was in addition to the grey skins trapped for export. Taking over an abandoned skin line on the East Coast, he had enough pelts after one season, typically six weeks over Winter. They were stamped at the police station in St. Marys, and sent to be tanned in Melbourne. The items were then sent to Hobart, to be made up by furrier Frank Zaplatel.

With advice from the Queen Victoria Museum, the coat is now being displayed under LED in a custom made case, in order to ensure its longevity and safekeeping. Roger Nutting says of its presence in the visitor centre, “We are very pleased to have this item on permanent display. It is important to preserve this piece of social history.”

Trapper’s huts were once a common feature of the Tasmanian landscape, and the winter pelts in high demand in Europe, being of very good quality. As most of the skins, including possum, wallaby and kangaroo, were trapped for export, this beautiful coat is a great example of an item made for domestic use.

[udesign_icon_font name="fa fa-camera" color="#000000"] Mike Moores