At the fleece sale

An original literary non-fiction-style account of visiting a small sale of sheep's fleeces.

The buyers began with their hands. Before anyone asked a price, fingers parted the wool and lifted small tufts towards the light. One woman stretched a few strands, released them and watched them settle. Another held a fleece against the sleeve of her coat, considering the colour. Nobody seemed impressed by the size of the bags. A huge one near the door attracted less attention than a shallow basket on the smallest stall.

I followed two friends who had come to buy enough wool for different projects. One wanted to make a rug. She pressed the fibres firmly between her palms and asked whether there were more fleeces like this one. Her friend was planning a scarf. She brushed a sample against her wrist, pulled a face and put it down. The seller nodded as if the rejection had been a useful answer.

At another table, a buyer opened her notebook. Between its pages were tiny samples tied with thread. She compared one with the wool on the stall and asked about the sheep it had come from. When the seller could not answer a question about a particular bag, he said so. She moved on without arguing.

The first purchase I saw was small enough to fit inside a paper envelope. Its owner carried it away carefully, while a trolley of larger bags waited beside the exit. I had been trying to guess who had obtained the most wool for the least money. The buyers appeared to be making a different calculation.

What do you learn about how the buyers choose their wool?