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
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