Wool At Auction

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 875, 20 January 1930, Page 8

Wool At Auction

EXCITEMENT BEHIND THE SCENES ON tiers of desks built in the shape of a half-moon, keeneyed men sit and fumble with sheaves of papers or make rapid entries in large notebooks. Opposite the centre of the half-moon stands an auctioneer on a raised dais, his voice a steady under-current in a confused babble of sound. Such is the impression gleaned from a visit to a wool sale similar to that which opens in the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber tomorrow morning. Behind this startling confusion is one of the most elaborate and expensive buying systems in the world.

The average man will tell you that the woolbuyer is a fortunate fellow —holder of a fob that is drawn “right out of the box.” He is recognised as one who is paid well, who lives well and who enjoys plenty of leisure for a minimum amount of work. It is that sort of thing which is calculated to bring homicidal thoughts to the minds of perfectly respectable buyers. In reality the exciting and sometimes frenzied scene during the sale of wool at any centre merely represents the climax to the buyers’ work. Though it may last for, perhaps, two full days and is a time of strain both mental and vocal, and anxiety of a very real kind, it is preceded by days of hard work in city wool stores, and is backed by a long period of training and apprenticeship. Every year a small army of woolbuyers descends on New Zealand. A jolly, carefree sort of army it is, but the mercantile firms and agents who deal with its cosmopolitan members know that here are men who hold a great New Zealand industry in the hollow of their hands. They know just what they want and expect to be catered for properly. Arrangements must be perfected to the smallest detail and no time must be wasted, for a buyer’s day is measured in terms of hard cash and a good deal of it. SPEEDY THINKING From Britain, Europe, America and Japan those buyers come. Some are Englishmen representing foreign firms, and others are themselves foreign. One or two may have difficulties with the English language, but all know wool "inside out,” and can think so quickly during an auction that their bidding can be followed by only the most astute auctioneers. During the auctions each buyer exploits a different method of registering his bid. Some roar gruffly, some shout with open mouths, and some scream unashamedly. For many years a buyer who toured New Zealand became famous because of a highpitched scream like that of an animal in pain. It lasted for several seconds, or until the auctioneer took note. Its literal translation was “A quarter above the last bid.” As a sale goes on nerves become taut with the strain of continuous competition among experts. It is then that the auctioneers must watch their step lest in their laggardness or over-eagerness they make mistakes, annoy the buyers and hinder the chances of their clients, the woolgrowers. When hitches occur the buyers follow a time-honoured custom and whistle, loudly and with a queerly derisive note. These whistles are reserved for every irregular occasion. If one of their number makes an unexpectedly high bid the rest whistle

with a note that seems to say, “Silly chump,” or “Well, we are surprised!” If the auctioneer takes an obviously wrong bid or places the sale unfairly, they whistle sharply and imperiously, following up with shouts of disapproval. YOUNG MAN’S ORDEAL It was probably an unsuccessful auctioneer of wool who first expressed the hope that the floor would “open up and swallow him.” Only when the erring auctioneer is young or conducting his first sale do the buyers show mercy. They give him a sporting run for his money and encourage him with a round of applause when the last “lot” is sold and he retires thankfully to face his manager and, perchance, a foaming glass. But to return to the careers of the buyers. The majority of these are born to the wool trade. Possibly they have begun their apprenticeship as boys in big English houses, by sweeping out bins. All pass through a long and arduous period of training before they are considered competent to travel across the world and make or break their employers by the quality of their judgment. That is why woolbuyers are well paid. They have heavy financial responsibilities and the firms behind them rely entirely upon their shrewdness and business acumen. VALUE OF CABLES During the off season buyers who are not permanently stationed in New Zealand, Australia, or other wool-pro-ducing countries, spend their time at headquarters studying the needs of their markets. Then, for six months or more they are on the move; travelling from tt>w r n to town and making wool history as they go. The great and indispensable friend of the woolbuyer is the telegraph boy. The representatives of overseas firms are kept informed by cable of the requirements of their respective houses, the state of the markets, and the price “limits” to which they may go. These limits and scraps of market information are the guides of the buyers as, dressed in their white overalls, they move among the bales at each wool store and mark their catalogues with the prices to which they are prepared to “go.” Often, however, fresh cables arrive during the progress of the actual sales and the buyers art on these with lightning rapidity. No occupation is more anxiously exciting than woolbuying, and none makes greater demand on a man’s mental resources. Behind the babble and apparent disorder at the Town Hall tomorrow morning experts will operate a carefully-planned system that turns over thousands of pounds every hour. E.H.S.M.