REPORT: Universal Trophy Services Mixed Review

[Jeffrey Masters]

My brother and I visited the taxidermy shop recommended to us, and it took me only a few minutes in the shop to say HELL NO!! OF course, I did not tell the shop owner that, but al my animals are coming back to the US to Dennis at AOW. Maybe 10% of the animals in the shoip were passable, only passable, and the rest were horrible. Sadly, some of the animals were real trophies! I have a taxiderist here at home that is incredible. I have never been disappointed. He has never done much African stuff, and was not really excited about it, so I just ended the conversation. IF he gets mad because I went to Dennis, then so be it. I want my trophies to be the best they can be.....

 

[enysse]

I paid a lot more to have my sable mounted in the USA, but it looks PERFECT and is displayed in the living room for me to see every day so I'm happy with the results. It's one animal you have to get right, there is no room for bad taxidermy.

 

[Savage Hunter]

Agree with all the above and lessons I learned from getting bear, sheep, mtn goat, etc done in Alaska. I should have noted I did visit the taxidermist but I definitely did not research scores of them. I also took a ton of photos of all my animals. At the end of the day I think what happened here is lack of care about quality work being done and more concern about quantity going out the door. I've learned my lesson and it won't happen to me again. Fortunately I'll be on another hunt to Africa in 2 months but still can't replace my first Sable...it's a shame.

have you considered buying a new sable cape while in country on this next trip?
you should check to see if you can bring the tanned skin home with you or get one dip/pack sent with your next hunt's skins.

 

[MizzouAg]

Sorry about your experience. This isn't very comforting as this is the dip and pack/ taxidermist used by our outfitter. Our plan was to have them dip and pack then ship to Dennisfor taxidermy work.

Headed to SA in a couple weeks. Looks like we need to be prepared to have a good chat with our host.

Thanks for posting your experience.

 

[TKW]

have you considered buying a new sable cape while in country on this next trip?
you should check to see if you can bring the tanned skin home with you or get one dip/pack sent with your next hunt's skins.

I have yes, but I think I'm actually going to add Sable to my safari list if I have time. I wanted to just focus on Buffalo and Roan but if there is a quality Sable in the area we may try to add.

 

[TKW]

Sorry about your experience. This isn't very comforting as this is the dip and pack/ taxidermist used by our outfitter. Our plan was to have them dip and pack then ship to Dennisfor taxidermy work.

Headed to SA in a couple weeks. Looks like we need to be prepared to have a good chat with our host.

Thanks for posting your experience.

I'm sure you'll be fine MizzouAg. My PH has a long history with UTS and I've read other posts about the quality of their work and have seen it. This was an unfortunate experience for me that I should have been more proactive in managing (e.g. asking for photos) so it could have been resolved on the spot. As I said originally...all of the other work was great (the skins, skulls, and horns) and had no issues. Good luck!

 

[MizzouAg]

I'm sure you'll be fine MizzouAg. My PH has a long history with UTS and I've read other posts about the quality of their work and have seen it. This was an unfortunate experience for me that I should have been more proactive in managing (e.g. asking for photos) so it could have been resolved on the spot. As I said originally...all of the other work was great (the skins, skulls, and horns) and had no issues. Good luck!

Thanks.

 

[Sailonafly]

Ouch.....I have a crate coming in 2 months with 14 trophies from them. My father and I did an hour long walk thru their facility and were EXTREMELY impressed. Granted I have only walked thru perhaps a half dozen other taxidermist workshops, but none were even close Rupert’s level. I agree his communication and professionalism has been second to none thus far, but for the first time in 10 months I’m nervous. The experience I had with my safari company and PH were so out of this world amazing, that none of my party could even contemplate them recommending a second rate taxidermist. As noted above, there’s not much you can do when using a taxidermist abroad, we thought we made a good decision, I can only hope that your sable was one that slipped thru the cracks. You mentioned Rupert offered to pay for repairs...has he? I’ve been getting more and more anxious as the year wait has started to wind down. Now I’m very concerned. Thanks for your post.

 

[Bhfs300]

Where did you hunt and what I’d the name of the Taxidermy shop?
I got a call the day they were crating mine up and they discovered it was facing the wrong way after 10 months and wanted to do a quick fix for me.
I had emailed them many times to get some kind of communication and got nothing.
They gave me a couple hundred off on the bill.
It came and looked like crap.
Try to get some pictures so you can see what is happening.
Maybe you can fix a problem early.

 

[TKW]

Ouch.....I have a crate coming in 2 months with 14 trophies from them. My father and I did an hour long walk thru their facility and were EXTREMELY impressed. Granted I have only walked thru perhaps a half dozen other taxidermist workshops, but none were even close Rupert’s level. I agree his communication and professionalism has been second to none thus far, but for the first time in 10 months I’m nervous. The experience I had with my safari company and PH were so out of this world amazing, that none of my party could even contemplate them recommending a second rate taxidermist. As noted above, there’s not much you can do when using a taxidermist abroad, we thought we made a good decision, I can only hope that your sable was one that slipped thru the cracks. You mentioned Rupert offered to pay for repairs...has he? I’ve been getting more and more anxious as the year wait has started to wind down. Now I’m very concerned. Thanks for your post.

As I’d mentioned before I’ve seen great work from UTS and heard mostly very positive reviews on them. I posted images of my Sable just to highlight how important it is to stay in touch with your taxidermist and if you do have work done remotely be sure to get photos before payment and before exporting. I have been in touch with Rupert since posting this review but I’m going to hold off on recapping everything until all the dust has settled to give a fair and complete report.

 

[johnnyblues]

Sorry to see your sable looking like that. It looks exactly like my Nyala did after Relieve taxidermy in SA did it. And yes the offered to have it repaired by that's not the point. I did have it repaired at my own expense because as far as I am concerned I want nothing to do with SA taxidermy except for dip/pack purposes...And that scares the hell out of me. Top of Texas taxidermy is doing my last safari and the current thread will show you in progress picture's. Erik is doing one hell of a job for me. Considering he has them since February and my compleition date is the end of this month is outstanding. As you said next time just bring them home!