INVERCARGILL WOOL SALE

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1930, Page 11

INVERCARGILL WOOL SALE

HALF OF OFFERING PASSED. ALMOST NO IMPROVEMENT. By Telegraph.—Press Assocl don Invercargill, Last Night. The first wool sale of the Invercargill series was' held, this evening. Suggestions that it would be wise to cancel the sale did not find a great deal of favour, but a communication .from England to the effect that prices would almost certainly be better later evidently had the effect of firming the reserve on a number of lots. Roughly 50 per cent, of the offerings in some catalogues were passed in and a fair number of lots were withdrawn when the estimate of values became known. Bidding generally was not spirited but was keen up to a point, Buyers were undoubtedly acting on very restricted limits and it was apparent that they were not prepared to go beyond a certain point, except in a very few cases when bidding for super wools. The sale generally brought forth prices about in keeping with brokers’ valuation, but in many cases farmers had decided to reserve their clips rather than accept ruling values. In some cases there was a reserve, of from lOd to 12d on wool passed in at from 7id to BJd. Up to a late hour the values realised were about equal to half of those paid at the concluding sales of last year. Fully half of the local clip had been disposed of at these prices. No doubt many .growers will .feel disposed within the next few days to accept the passed-in prices or elect to attempt to do business with the buyers at slight advances, but the general feelino- among the buyers is that no business will be done in advance of the passed-in prices, and they may not be prepared to go to that extent. The bidding was confined largely to the Bradford interests, and most of the heavy-weight in the better wools went in that direction. The Continental buying was free up to a point for the more inferior wools and many lines of the better pieces were purchased in their interests. Local mills and to some extent speculators secured a few lines of the better wools, while medium crossbred in some cases fell to bids which appeared to be attractive to buyers for those inclined to venture in wool speculation. Values showed a . slight improvement over those ruling at the Wanganui sale, but when the quality of the yield was taken into consideration from a buyer’s point of view there was doubt if the present prices were fully justified, and any improvement shown was probably negligible.