WOOL PRICES TODAY'S SALE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 138, 7 December 1935, Page 11

WOOL PRICES

TODAY'S SALE

COARSE [WOOLS EASIER

FINE .SORTS IN DEMAND

The first Wellington wool sale of the 1935-36 selling season opened at 8 a.m. today at the Town Hall. Even at that early hour there was a large attendance of the general public, including a strong contingent of interested growers, also some members of Parliament and the Hon. A. D. McLeod, an ex-Minister of Lands, and Mr. C. E. Macrhillan, an ex-Minister of Agriculture. ": The buying benches were fully occupied by representatives of Bradford, France, and the Continent generally, .also Japan and the United States and Canada. New Zealand manufacturers were well represented and paid relatively high prices for wools suitable to their requirements. Australia, too, was in the market. The catalogues generally contained . a fairly large proportion of held-over wools which met with a quite good reception. There were also some very attractive lines of the' new season's clip all of which were eagerly sought at prices to limits imposed on the buyers. The New Zealand Wool Committee placed a limit on the quantity of wool to be offered at this sale of 26,000 bales, but in consequence of the" heavy deliveries into brokers' stores and the fairly healthy tone of the wool market generally, the aggregate catalogue was augmented to over 30,000, the total to ■be exact being 30,353 bales. The first catalogue to be offered was one of over 8000 bales, and the next 3198 bales, together a fairly heavy .weight of wool to be dealt with in about a couple of hours. EARLY PRICE TRENDS. .Fine wools were in very good demand,' and held their own on Napier prices, but coarse, low-grade, shabby wools were down on Napier by about Jd to Jd, in the opinion of some qualified observers of the. course of the ..market. Bradford bought heavily in the medium to coarse crossbred sec- . tion,. and France was determined to obtain the finer wools. Canada was interested in lambs. . Not until the close of the sale will the official range of prices be compiled, therefore the following prices should be taken .as general rather than particular:—Merino, of which there was but a small quantity, sold 13Jdto 17Jd; South- ■ down, 13d to 16d; halfbred, lOd to 14|d; fine crossbred; 9d to lljd; medium crossbred, 7Jd to BJd; coarse crossbred, 7d to Bd. Fine crossbred hogget wool made up to lljd. Bellies and pieces realised from sid to 8d and BJd to 9Jd for halfbreds. Necks brought 8d to 10£d;.crutchings s£d to 7Jd. ■ As the sale proceeded it became far too, evident for the good of the sale that sellers' ideas of the value of their wool was above buyers' judgment of the market. Passings-in became much more frequent than when the sale began. Towards the luncheon adjournment buyers' interest in the sale showed definite signs of flagging. It ■was not, generally speaking, the quality; of the wool submitted that was at ; fault,. because some particularly ; good ■lines came under the hammer. The fact was, the market as buyers judged it, did not in many instances warrant the prices placed by owners on their ■ wool. : . A comparison of prices realised iii the early part of this sale with those ; for the first sale in Wellington last year showed -crossbreds, superfine to ■ average, to be 2Jd to 3Jd better and Jambs' wool up by about 2d. Pieces, bellies, and similar descriptions were about 2d better. Averaged over the whole/sale when it closes it is questionable if these advances will be maintained. A slight idea of values (lacking a specific description- of the wool) may be gained from the following prices , realised just before lunch time for the : Wellington clip:—AA swes 9£d> A ewes • B£d, B ewes 7Jd, A three-quarter-bred ewes BJd, B three-quarter-bred_ ewes • Bd, C crossbred ewes 7id, A crossbreds 7d, lambs 9Jd, skirtings 6Jd, bellies and ; pieces. 5d to sj|d. ■ The sale is proceeding with no marked alteration in the market. Brokers* realisations will be found ■n page 6. . '