CALLED TO ORDER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18634, 19 February 1935, Page 7

CALLED TO ORDER

WOOL BUYERS AT NAPIER KEENNESS OF BIDDING (Special to tho Herald.) NAPIER, this day. The Napier wool sale held yesterday was the noisiest for years. As was the ease at the January sale, the keenness of the buyers to secure the wool at their own limits was indicated not only bv the noise emanating from the benches, but also by the number of disputes. At times, the clamor from the benches resembled pandemonium, and twice during the morning Mr. Herbert Hill, president ol the New Zealand Woolbuyers’ Association, who was present, interrupted tho sale ’to call buyers to order for persistently bidding on lines before the previous line had been knocked down by the auctioneer. If the degree of noise were any indication of the state of the market—which unfortunately, it was not—yesterday’s sale could have been described as easily the best of the season, for it was certainly the noisiest. With so much noisy bidding, certain of the buyers adopted unusual methods to record their bids. The entertaining spectacle was seen on several occasions of a well-known Bradford buyer frenziedly threshing the desk in front of him and emitting staccato noises that were a very fair imitation of a barking dog, while a Continental operator behind him on the next tier was extending his arms and featuring agonised howls, as of a soul in torment.

The fact that the well-known Bradford firm of Francis Willey and Company had called a meeting of creditors, as conveyed in the cable news on Saturday, had no noticeable effect upon the operations of the New Zealand representatives of the company, who were just as strongly represented in the bidding ;.s usual. This particular company is, of course, an extensive commission buyer.