I picked the fish up today and he was VERY uncooperative and belligerant. On more than one occasion he called me a M.F., spewing more insults than one would like to think a "businessman" in Fairbanks would even think of saying to a customer. The fish looked like a rotten, dried up fish you would find on the side of the lake. WORST work I have ever seen. I could have done FAR better myself, and I have never done taxidermy. I will be taking him to small claims court. Also calling the Better Business Bureau tomorrow. He ruined two gorgeous fish, and on top of that, wouldn't reimburse me, and I sure wasn't about to let him "finish" the job. He has done enough damage. My taxidermist back home does a FAR superior job in a third of the time, making my fish look fresh out of the water in roughly 4 to 6 months.

Posted 30 Nov 2009 by SGTShad

He also threatened to beat me into the ground when I picked them up today.

Posted 30 Nov 2009 by SGTShad

I am sorry for your bad experience, Rich Harter was the best Taxidermist in this town and also a great person, the new guy that bought it is less then pleasing and i tried to take them some thing but i could not get over the new guy Sam how he tries to brag him self up.

Posted 8 Dec 2009 by hoytman

I would agree with hoytman that Rich was/is a superb Taxidermist, He has done numerous mounts for me, And also would have to agree that the new owner or owners are worthless, When i was in there the new taxidermist told me he owned it but then found out that another guy ownes it and that the taxidermist just works there. There running what was a great shop into the ground. I would go back there in the future if things changed and they got a better taxidermist.

James.

Posted 8 Dec 2009 by iceberg

For one, it is a bittersweet thing to know I am not the only one who has problems with these guys. I have to agree, Rich is by far the best I have found up here. I didn't even know Sam Cook wasn't the owner. Heck, I didn't even know Jeff Masters existed, let alone owned the business. (By the way, just a head's up, Jeff Masters also owns MPC Plumbing, so if you need a plumber, you know which one not to call.) They truly are running it into the ground. Sam Cook is supposedly a national champion taxidermist, but I have yet to A) see anything on the web about him or his work, and trust me, I have looked. Not even pictures. Most I found was a little newspaper ad from Mississippi where he used to have a shop. Or B) see any good work he has done. All the work on their website is Rich's work, that they claim as their own. If you look at the hunting pictures you will see they have even claimed those as their own, and they have Rich in them! There were two large sailfish in there that Rich was working on when I dropped my fish off, and they are still sitting in there, nowhere near being done. They have lost people's jobs, put jobs on the back burner because they were not bringing any money into their shop as they were paid in full before Jeff bought the business, and taken horrible attitudes towards customers. I do not see them staying affloat for long. Sam Cook claims to be a Christian, but I can tell you from experience, if he is, he is not a very good one. Jeff Masters explained to me they put my jobs aside because they needed to do the jobs that brought in money for their business. I told him I understood that, because you have to keep yourself affloat, but at the same time, when you buy a business, you buy the pre-existing jobs. Yeah, it sucks that you aren't going to make anything on it, but if you anger that customer who paid in full a year and a half ago, you are doing yourself more harm than good. On that same note, you do a great job in a reasonable timeline, shoot straight with the customer, they are going to tell their friends. I don't know about you, but I have yet to see a bilboard or commercial for a taxidermist. Word of mouth (no pun intended) is practically their sole advertiser. As of my writing this, there have been 131 views for my original posting. Do the math. Say each of those people would have prospectively taken in a fish, which would have cost roughly $500. Good average for a fish. $500 times 131 would have been customers comes to $65,500. That makes a pretty darn good year. Unless your business practices have scared that $65,500 off. I would think that the logical business owner would bite the bullet on the $1,000 job he isn't making anything on in order to draw in more customers, but apparently they have the mindset of "I'm not making anything on this job, so it doesn't matter." Well, it does. I picked the fish up before they were done. Yes, I was looking at an unfinished product. But like I told Jeff, that was by far not the first time I had been in a taxidermy studio. I know what they look like in the various stages. These fish were FAR under the standard. I have pictures of them online, if you wish to see them, email me and I will gladly send you the link. The poses have no creativity, they are lumpy, the tails do not taper like they should, and they just all around look shoddy. The one for my son has no pose to it whatsoever. It looks like he carved it out of a 2X4 and put fins on it. The only movement to it is a little bit of curl on the tail fin. The larger one is turned away from you, where it should logically be turned towards you. Again, if you would like to see pictures, let me know, I will gladly send you the link.
Jesse

Posted 8 Dec 2009 by SGTShad

You guys must have been going to a different shop than me. I've seen Sam's work and I've seen Rich's work. The difference is night and day. Rich's looks like he learned from a video... and Sam's has the detail work that makes his heads and tails above Rich. The average guy hunter off the street doesn't really know what to look for and for the most part thinks "yea...this looks okay". If you don't think that Rich is God's gift to taxidermist then just ask him and he'll tell you. Well I have seen his work up close and you couldn't pay me have any of my mounts done by him. His work sucks. I've seeen cupped years, offset eyes, terrible capes, etc... come out of Richs shop. There have been alot of discussion (not recently) about how bad of a taxidermist he is on Taxidermy.net forums over the years before he sold his business so I am definitely not alone in my opinion of him.

As far as Jeff goes he's a top notch plumber with an excellent reputation here in Fairbanks. He's been in business here many years and unless you are good, honest, and responsive to the cliet you just don't stay in business they way he has. He's worked for me a couple of times and has always been fair and honest with me. You all are judgeing the man and his business unfairly IMO and should give him the benefit of the doubt. Will I use Sam as my taxidermist? Without a doubt. Will I use Jeff again when I need some work done...again without a doubt. Do your homework and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Posted 20 Jan 2010 by Mancos Shale