F-C,

I'm not sure that there has been that much of a change in the last ten years in feather quality.

I have several books from the 70s and early 80s where the authors are lamenting the lack of good dry fly hackle.

Seems that the domestic breeders and properly applied genetic techniques have solved that problem for good, as the feathers we have today are far superior in many ways to what has ever been available.

The way that grading scales like Gold/#1, Silver/#2, Bronze...etc.. was explained to me had nothing to do with feather quality, but with feather count. A gold/#1 cape will have more feathers in more sizes than a same colored cape from the same breeder. In many ways, this makes the higher grade capes the best value, as you get more feathers per dollar spent with them.

Whether or not the feather numbers have escalated per cape/grade over the last few years I don't know. I do know that I have three five year old gold capes that will provide all the dry fly hackle feathers I'll liklely need in this life.

Buddy