THE WOOL SALES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 141, 11 December 1914, Page 2

THE WOOL SALES

DEMAND KEEN ; PRICES EASIER The second Wellington wool sale of ' the season was opened at the Town Hall to-day by W. and G. Turnbull, followed by Levin and Co., who had the biggest catalogue to offer buyers. Prices, compared with the last sale held here in November, were generally lower. There was no doubt whatever about the keenness of the demand. The buyers badly wanted the wool, but they were not willing to t fall in with growers' ideas of values.^ As a consequence, although bidding was never brisker, a very large quantity of wool was passed in. As a prominent buyer put it : " Mr. Passedin is buying most of it to-day." No doubt a large proportion of the wool which failed to reach the reserve will be privately purchased after the sale, but it was made abundantly manifest in the room that the buyers were bidding to the utmost of their limits. Bradford is practically the only market open foi* British-grown wools, and, notwithstanding the heavy khaki demand, even Bradford is not disposed to absorb all the wool offering at the high prices put upon it by so many growers, actuated, no doubt, by the state of the market when the season opened last month. Fine crossbreds were down id to per pound on last sale rates j medium and coarse to |d; inferior £d to The wool, as shown in the stores, attracted the most favourable attention of buyers, some of them expressing the opinion that Wellington had never produced better. It was light in grease and particularly Well grown. Had the market warranted ' it, much higher prices than were paid would have been forthcoming. The sale opened with a line of 470 bales by W. and G. Turnbul], and then came the biggest catalogue of the sale — that of Levin and C0.,' 5874 bales. The disposal of this catalogue" gave a fair indication of how the rest of the sale would go. Some of the top_ prices realised during the sale of _ this particular offering i showed a reduction of fd to Id upon' the prices that would have been obtained fqr given wools had they been offered at the November sales. Among the top prices in this cata* logue were 12d for Romney, 12^d for Romney hoggets, and 12^d for Romney lambs, 12d for crossbreds, ll^d medium crossbred, and 12^d for , lambs ; 12d for fine crossbreds. The prices in any case are most remunerative so far as the grower is concerned, but indirectly he has to pay the increased shipping and insurance rates (in some instances bomb insurance) for whicli the -war' is responsible. From those who should know it was learned that although the wool had shown a drop, it was quite impossible to forecast even a month ahead what prices would be. The position of .the wool market was to-day more uncertain than had over been known in the experience of the oldest men in the trade, because of the exceptional circumstances that had arisen. Brokers' own reports of the sales are held over.