Deb, Glad you brought this up, as it is a 'nuance' to grading cree. When I originally started visiting the farm years ago, John Schaper, their chief grader at the time, show me dozens of cree saddles and capes and pointed out these nuances in each.
The 'chevroning' effect of the black bar in cree runs the gamut from acceptable to unacceptable. For the highest quality cree coloration, the bars must be straight across and 3 well-pronunced colors. But in many, because of the grizzly stock, the black bar starts taking a slight dip downward in the center pointing towards the tip. This is still very good cree, as the 3 bars are still pronounced and each barb will have all three colors. But as this dip gets greater, the chevron effect of the colors is greater. Then the cree coloration starts to decline as the black arrow starts to separate the ginger and cream from side to side. Also, as the dark-bar chevron pattern progresses, it itself starts degrading and becomes a heart-shaped or 'seargeant's stripe' type of mark in the center of the feather. This is not cree, but variant, as the bar does not cross the feather. Lastly, there's a suggestion of a dark edge to the ginger color, forming a faint 'V' shape. Not to say these feathers aren't good feathers, as they could still be a gold neck in a ginger variant color that would tie awesome flies. I have a few of these, and they are still favorites. I've seen some of the photographs you mentioned, and most of Tom's cree stock right now is showing a black bar point and chevroning of the pattern- especially in the saddles. I think it's because his genetic line is so locked on that that feature is being made stronger at each generation, and becoming more dominant. But the colors are still true cree as all three bands cross the feather. I would like to see him get more ginger color into the pattern, and I'll investigate his stock this week when I visit there. I've also noticed that the cree necks have lighter coloration than cree saddles. Hope this settled your concerns. DonO
