Local wool producers Brian and Lynette Seaman were amongst the big winners in the popular community event, winning the champion ram’s fleece and grand champion fleece.

Ironically, it also won the highest commercial value fleece, with Mark Horsburgh from TWG estimating it would bring a return of $101.

Sitting right next to the winning fleece was a beautiful silver service tea set, a memento from another era when Mr Seaman’s father Snow (Frank) and uncle Greg took the commercial fleece title in 1968.

The prize certificate read: “The Commercial Banking Co of Sydney. Bathurst Show 100th year 1968. Commercial value fleece $64 presented to Seaman Bros of Sally’s Flat.”

A talking point at the show was just how little the value of a top fleece had increased in those 47 years.

In fact, some quick mathematics shows the Consumer Price Index over that period averaged an increase of about five per cent per annum.

To put it in context, that same fleece would be worth $634 these days based on that equation.

Mr and Mrs Seaman run a flock of merinos at their Back Swamp Road property “Huntleigh” at The Rocks.

“We were pretty happy to win this year because it doesn’t come around very often,” Mr Seaman said. “The show society asked us to bring the old trophy in as a piece of memorabilia because this is our bicentenary year.

“Actually, the winning fleece came in about the same weight at the one at the 100th show, about 14.5 kilograms cut and 10 kilos skirted (trimmed around its perimeter) coming in at 18.7 microns.”

So, why does Mr Seaman still proudly call himself a wool man? 

“It’s the way you are made,” he said. “And because our merino operation is a pretty good one, producing a lot of wool per sheep at the right micron.

“We still turn over as much as the crossbred people because ours is a self-replacing flock. Basically, we are good at what we do and can still make a living from it. 

“Our fleece was valued at $101 but most of the others in the competition came in between $67 and $70, so it can still be really tough with hardly any change in returns compared to back in 1968.”

Western Advocate Rural Note- book columnist John Seaman said that fleece prices haven’t flourished over the past 50 years.

“But the inputs to produce those fleeces have soared,” he said. “Who would be a farmer? Meat is carrying the sheep industry now days. The value of mutton and lamb is worth a lot more than wool.”