Kauri gum varied enormously in quality, and diggers soon learned that careful sorting meant better prices. The gum they hauled from swamps and hillsides ranged from clear golden lumps to chalky fragments, and each grade found a different market. Scraping the oxidised crust off the gum was tedious but necessary work, as unscraped kauri gum sold for much less than scraped gum.
The daily grind of cleaning
After dinner diggers used a knife to scrape away the outer weathered rind, often encrusted with soil, a tedious task that took up many evenings and wet days. They worked six days a week, and spent their evenings cleaning the gum by scraping it with a knife. This work happened by candlelight in rough huts across the Northland gumfields. The diggers scraped and sorted the gum before taking it to buyers.
Colour and clarity determined value
The most prized was white gum and the clearer the better, with yellow grades the next most valuable, followed by the brown and chalk which was the least valuable of all. The most prized was pale gold, as it was hard and translucent. Colours ranged from chalky-white through red-brown to black, depending on burial conditions and the original tree.
Gum from swamps often looked different from hillside finds. Since 1947, range or pale gum from high localities has been exported for use in the dental trade, a market that takes only bold gum, clean pieces with the outer coat removed. There has been a revival in the use of brown gum, from swamps and low-lying ground.
Different grades for different uses
Only the highest grades of gum were suitable for varnish manufacture. Gum was graded on its quality, with higher-grade gum used in varnish, but around 1910, overseas manufacturers began using poorer-grade gum to make linoleum. This opened new markets. A market was created for low-grade gum, including small pieces known as gum nuts and chips, and the previously worthless scrapings and dust.
The grades mattered greatly to diggers trying to make a living. See examples of kauri gum art and jewellery made from high-quality pieces.
Selling to storekeepers
Storekeepers were the main buyers of kauri gum, they grubstaked many diggers, allowed them to buy supplies on credit, on condition that they sold their findings to the storekeeper, and once a week the storekeeper did his rounds, delivering supplies and buying gum. Gum was laid out at the gum tip, a cleared area, often on a rise so that it received the sun and wind, where the gum’s purity was judged, a price was decided and the gum was weighed.
Complaints arose about fairness. A government inquiry in 1898 heard that diggers were often unjustly dealt with in the matter of weight, with instances of many pounds in the hundredweight being pilfered from the seller of gum by means of unproved balances and scales.
The merchants take over
From the gumfields, the harvest travelled to Auckland. Horse-drawn carts and large bullock teams pulled the gum on sleds to the nearest port, where it was loaded onto barges, coastal cutters and steamers, and shipped to Auckland. Gum was unloaded at Auckland’s wharves and taken to the major buyers’ warehouses where it was then cleaned again and graded, ready for export.
Visit museums and heritage sites to see gum grading equipment and examples of different grades.
The search for standard grades
The lack of consistency troubled the industry. There had arisen a system under which there were almost as many grades of gum sent to Auckland as there were individual diggers. The establishment of a standard grading of kauri-gum is a complex problem, as the grading of kauri-gum differs materially from the grading of such products as wool, flax, and butter, on account of the much wider variation in the quality and characteristics of kauri gum.
A 1921 government commission recommended that it is advisable that there should be a standard grading of kauri-gum for export, and that a Government grader of kauri-gum be appointed. The wide variation in gum characteristics made this difficult to achieve.
Hours of work for uncertain pay
The gumdiggers would spend many hours sorting, scraping and cleaning the gum to obtain the best price. Despite this effort, few diggers prospered. The work of sorting and grading began in the field and continued through long evenings, all to squeeze a few more shillings from each week’s haul. Learn more about this era in the gum diggers gallery.
