When does your brand expire? (Cheyenne, Sheridan: for sale, lawyer, house) - Wyoming (WY) - City-Data Forum

ElkHunter · 06-22-2012, 09:15 AM

Does anybody get the "Western Ag Reporter"? Fantastic paper that comes out from Billings that will keep you abreast of all the Agriculture related Topics.

Reading the Thrusday, June 7, 2012 article about "When does your brand expire? Missing the deadline can be very expensive!" reall kind of ticked me off.

I can't post the link because you have to subscribe, so I will paraphrase.

It seems that a ranch, down here in Wyoming took some cattle to St Onge South Dakota for sale. The South Dakota brand inspector, at the sale, pointed out, "Those are not your cattle." The owner said, "What? I've been selling cattle here for years." The Brand inspector said, "Well, that's not your brand." The owner said, "That brand has been in our family for 80 years, what are you talking about?"

It seems that the brand had expired and they had sent out two notices. They had no response so they resold the brand. They said that sometime a while back, somebody changed the address and the new address is where we sent the notices and they were returned for insufficient address. The owner said, "Why would we change the address, we haven't moved. Our family has been in the same house for 65 years." It seems that somebody had put in an address change to an address that did not exist. The brand was now under new ownership. The new owner was Casey Cunningham of Sheridan. He is a Wyoming Livestock Investigator. When the owners wanted to buy it back, they offered Casey $5000. and he refused. When they finally offered $10,000. , he gave the brand back and made them pay transfer fees.

They didn't realize the brand had expired. Some time ago Wyoming changed to staggered renewals and the owners thought that all of their brands feel under the same catagory and would renew at the same time. Not so.

They sold cattle 12 times after the brand expired and the brand inspector gave them a G form to allow them to take cattle out of the state for sale.

Who changed the address? The brand was one of the few remaining "Single Iron" brands. The "Mule Shoe".

branDcalf · 06-22-2012, 06:03 PM

Not good. Some kind of a dirty deal right there.

Guess it would pay to check on that and some other things annually. Like on my birthday or some other special date.

R_Cowgirl · 06-22-2012, 06:25 PM

The same goes for Trademarks. You have to stay on top of all "brands" whether it's for cattle or your company. If you registered it anywhere, then you will have to renew it somewhere. That's just a good rule to remember. If the revenooers can find a way to take money outta your pocket, they will! Also a good rule to remember.

If I were the owners of that brand I'd get on it with a lawyer and go after the snake that pulled a fast one on them. I remember at one point Coca Cola lost their domain name for some reason or another -- someone pulling a fast one and trying to cash in. The courts decided that because they had such public use of it, the snake who tried to get it away from them had no rights. It's possible there's a remedy for the Mule Shoes people as well. But you gotta go and fight for it.

sunsprit · 06-22-2012, 07:26 PM

EH, I've had enough dealings with the local brand inspectors and the WY Livestock board to know that somethin's pretty fishy about that story ...

if there was a "change of address" filed for that brand and the renewal notices came back because it wasn't a valid mailing address, as the owner of that brand I'd be down in Cheyenne asking for proof of the change of address filing before paying a brand inspector a premium price to get my brand back.

Sounds like some insider dealings happened on that one. I'd be curious to know just how many changes of address with phony mailing addresses are getting returned renewal notices these days so that the outcome is that a brand isn't renewed by the current owner of record. It sure wouldn't have taken anything more than a phone call to a local brand inspector to go check up on those folks with that Mule Shoes brand and be sure that they knew that it was about to expire.

jody_wy · 06-22-2012, 08:54 PM

Allot of this got hashed out at the Brand Committe at WSGA convention. department of Ag and Livestock Board gave and exclamation and also got a grilling. Resoultion was made asking that anybody in brand inspection or recorsding can not apply for an abondon brand. and that there needs to be better atemps to locate brand owners when it is time to renew. If the brand office had looked at G Form they would of had the correct address in this case, they had the correct informatin right in thier office and did fallow up on it. Brand are staggerd to be re newed and once reregisterd good for 10 years.

ElkHunter · 06-22-2012, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jody_wy

Allot of this got hashed out at the Brand Committe at WSGA convention. department of Ag and Livestock Board gave and exclamation and also got a grilling. Resoultion was made asking that anybody in brand inspection or recorsding can not apply for an abondon brand. and that there needs to be better atemps to locate brand owners when it is time to renew. If the brand office had looked at G Form they would of had the correct address in this case, they had the correct informatin right in thier office and did fallow up on it. Brand are staggerd to be re newed and once reregisterd good for 10 years.

The article said that the original owner went to the office and confirmed his address in 2009 and even got a letter from that. Then in 2011 the brand was classified as abandoned. When he went there to ask why they said that they sent two letters and the address was incomplete. They said that is all they are responsible for, they can't be expected to track down everybody that lets a brand expire.

My question is this. Is your phone number on the paperwork??? I would think it is. He sold cattle 11 times after that brand expired and got G forms, every time. The only reason it was caught as it was, is because the Brand Inspector at St Onge had never seen that brand, so he looked it up and determined that it was owned by somebody else.

As far as I am concered, the whole article stinks. The owner said that he is not going to let it rest, he wants to find out the whole story.

The reason Cunningham asked so much for the brand is because he says, he had already branded some cattle and now he would have to go back and rebrand. You know, I've branded a lot of cattle for free just helping out ranchers around here. I branded, calved, hayed, plowed, harvested, fixed fence, dug out water holes, cleaned barns and all for $400 a month and found. $10,000. goes a long way, even if it is 2012.

EDIT - I just looked. The original owner is Jim and Roxie Dacar of Colony. His phone number is listed and his address is listed in the white pages.

branDcalf · 06-23-2012, 07:39 AM

I'm not buying Cunningham's story on the $10,000. The primary reason that brand is worth so much is because of historic value. Not just to the original owners, but to everyone who knows brands. They can be as much a part of the landscape as a creek or a butte.

ElkHunter · 06-23-2012, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by branDcalf

I'm not buying Cunningham's story on the $10,000. The primary reason that brand is worth so much is because of historic value. Not just to the original owners, but to everyone who knows brands. They can be as much a part of the landscape as a creek or a butte.

I agree, there's not a lot of single iron brands left, yet alone available.

jody_wy · 06-23-2012, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElkHunter

The article said that the original owner went to the office and confirmed his address in 2009 and even got a letter from that. Then in 2011 the brand was classified as abandoned. When he went there to ask why they said that they sent two letters and the address was incomplete. They said that is all they are responsible for, they can't be expected to track down everybody that lets a brand expire.

My question is this. Is your phone number on the paperwork??? I would think it is. He sold cattle 11 times after that brand expired and got G forms, every time. The only reason it was caught as it was, is because the Brand Inspector at St Onge had never seen that brand, so he looked it up and determined that it was owned by somebody else.

As far as I am concered, the whole article stinks. The owner said that he is not going to let it rest, he wants to find out the whole story.

The reason Cunningham asked so much for the brand is because he says, he had already branded some cattle and now he would have to go back and rebrand. You know, I've branded a lot of cattle for free just helping out ranchers around here. I branded, calved, hayed, plowed, harvested, fixed fence, dug out water holes, cleaned barns and all for $400 a month and found. $10,000. goes a long way, even if it is 2012.

EDIT - I just looked. The original owner is Jim and Roxie Dacar of Colony. His phone number is listed and his address is listed in the white pages.

brand inspector kept writing G forms , so the office had everything to track the owners.and there is alot more to the story, Livestock Board admitts there some problems to clean up.

ElkHunter · 06-23-2012, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jody_wy

brand inspector kept writing G forms , so the office had everything to track the owners.and there is alot more to the story, Livestock Board admitts there some problems to clean up.

Oh I'm sure there is. I've only got the article in front of me and that's the only thing I know about it. Par for the course, the Sheridan Press hasn't mentioned a word. Of course, they never would say anything unless it was a youth, or known trouble maker and then they print it on the front page.