CARGO AUCTIONED

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 187, 6 May 1931, Page 8

CARGO AUCTIONED

Salvage from Progress

INTERESTED CROWD With a calm sea that was a striking contrast to the storm of last Friday, as a background, an auction sale of salvaged cargo from the wreck of the coastal steamer Progress was held at Ohiro Bay yesterday “morning. All salvaged cargo from the wreck, the remains of which could be seen on the rocks, bad been collected into heaps, and was auctioned lot by lot by a Wellington firm. Some two hundred people attended the sale,. The majority appeared to be there for no .reason other than sheer curiosity. The sale, to most of them, was a novelty, and they were prepared to treat it as such. There were, however, a number of nearby farmers among the crowd, who had come for the purpose of picking up bargains in bags of flour, wheat, pollard, and bran. It was shifting sale, for the piles of goods were scattered over shingly beach and rocks. Starting with some sacks of flour, the auctioneer disposed of them for 2/6 a sack. Some pollard went for 1/6 a sack. Wheat,- bran, aud other sacks of flour went at varying prices. A large pile of wood fetched a few shillings. A zinclined chest was knocked down for 5/-, and a small pile of wood and portion of a stout mast at 4/6. Nothing fetched anything like a high price. It was not loug before the salvaged goods had been disposed of, and the crowd —a very different one from that which anxiously lined the shore last Friday gradually dispersed. Meanwhile, the bow of the ill-fated ship lies on the rocks, 6. grim reminder of the wreck.