“Best sale in a long time,” PGG Wrightson South Island sales manager and auctioneer Dave Burridge said.
He estimated nearly $6 million of wool was sold at the sale, the second auction staged at the show.
First-up at the sale was the New Zealand Merino co offering and auctioneer Mike Hargadon later noted a little more enthusiasm on the buyer bench than at the usual market venue, in what was a very firm market for its fine wools.
Mid-micron wools were also firmer. The Merino and mid-micron wools were very close to the end of their selling seasons.
Those wools were at record levels and had been the market highlights for several months as crossbred wool sat in the doldrums because of poor market demand.
However, strong wools came good on Thursday with bidding as spirited as for the fine wools though at a lower price.
Wrightson put some good quality 36 micron fleece up and it sold for $3.60/kg clean, a 14% lift over the 36 micron price at the last sale three weeks earlier.
The good prices indicated wool sales had been written in China and other Asian markets and there was not a lot of wool being sold at the auction though a lot still remains in storage.
Wrightson sold one lot of 15.7-micron Merino wool from John McArthur at Strathclyde Farm in Central Otago for $30.63/kg clean and he had two other lots at just over $30 as well.
In the mid-micron range a lot of 26 micron fetched $11.60/kg clean.
A feature of the auction was the excellent quality of the hogget wools across all the fleece types, Burridge said.
