This article is from the WSSF 2016 AFRMA Rat & Mouse Tales news-magazine.

By Karen Robbins

Martin Braak, Netherlands, Facebook
Q Is there some history known about the rat colour Champagne, when was the first shown? I think the first Champagne must have been bred between 1914–1915. But I cannot find records of it.

A According to the article by Nick Mays of the N.F.R.S. (in our March/April 1989 newsletter and also in our Rat Genetics Book, Champagne may have been known as Cream in 1935 Standards. Champagne has been in the N.F.R.S. Standards since 1976. It has been in AFRMA Standards since 1984 (we used the N.F.R.S. Standard at the time).

PBR Vanilla & PBR Molly, Champagne Standard rats that won a Youth Most Matched Pair class, owned by Victoria Shifflett, bred by Celeste Robinson, Phi Beta Rattery. Photo ©1999 Craig Robbins.

Update: Thank you. The first black rats were discovered by Jack Black and Jimmy Shaw, who kept these colours separate from the rats which were for the dog fights. The pink-eyed dilution mutation came from the Wistar line, which had a wild-caught base. Mr. W.E. Castle discovered this mutation and the first description is from 1914. So at that point both mutations were present and in my opinion it could not have taken too much time to combine these two mutations.

I saw also a difference in the standards, as AFRMA describes the colour as warm beige, the Dutch standards call it soft beige. Most people call it between soft beige and broken white.

Sorry for my English as I come from the Netherlands. At this moment I am busy with a little group of people to make a Dutch site about rats. I have almost all mutations registered.

And another mutation where I did not find a registration of is the American mink. It is a different gene then Cinnamon/Mink and it lays on another locus. Martin Braak