Gum Merchants
Gumdiggers generally sold their gum to local gumbuyers, who transported it to Auckland (generally by sea) for sale to merchants and exporters. There were six major export firms in Auckland who dealt in gum, employing several hundred workers who graded and rescraped the gum for export, packing them in cases made from kauri timber.
As early as the 1830s and 1840s, merchants, including Gilbert Mair and John Logan Campbell, were buying gum from local Māori for £5 ($8.25) a ton, or trading it for goods. The majority of the gum was exported to America and London (from whence it was distributed throughout Europe), although smaller amounts were sent to Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Russia.
Read more about this topic: Kauri Gum
Famous quotes containing the words gum and/or merchants:
“The hunchback on the corner, with gum and shoelaces,
Has his own wisdom and pleasures,”
—Robert Penn Warren (1905–1989)
“Hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be in his pocket, can he ever learn to dress like a gentleman-born. The merchants offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest “swell,” but he simply cannot buy the right things.”
—William James (1842–1910)