Gundagai's Harry Waters shows Australia's auctioneer style at Calgary

The distinctive Australian style of Harry Waters, the reigning Australian Livestock and Property Agents Association national young auctioneer, caught the attention of the big crowd watching the finals action and used to the chanting of the North American style of selling.

Mr Waters, who works for Elders Rural Services at Gundagai, NSW, won the right to compete on the world stage after taking out first the NSW state competition in 2022 and then the national contest at the Sydney Royal Show this year.

With only a couple of months to prepare, he took on 33 other auctioneers from across Canada, the US and South Africa, in the preliminary rounds held at Olds, Alberta, north of Calgary.

While not among the 10 finalists chosen to proceed, he was given the opportunity to demonstrate the Australian way of taking bids at the conclusion of the final, selling a mystery Black Box item.

In other parts of the world, agents call the bid they want rather than the bid they have, but Mr Waters explained that he was selling the Australian way, which he said was well received.

"I sold how we do back home and just announced that to the buyers and the crowd before I started, and they were all pretty well aware of it, as past Australians have come over sold the same (way)," he said.

"I tried to speed up how I normally sell, coming into this competition, which I think I did.

"It's very fast and it's got a bit of a chant to it.

"It's good to see but certainly a lot different to what we do."

His end result, selling a $200 gift card for almost double the price was remarked on favourably by the finals presenters, one of whom told the crowd, "these fellows travel a long way and fight jetlag - I don't think we appreciate what these guys do, selling in a completely different style".

South Africa's Tom Durban also made a guest appearance at the final to sell a mystery item.

New Mexico entrant Sixto Paiz, with many auctioneering competition credentials to his name and who sells cattle, cars and equipment in the US states of Texas and Oklahoma, was the competition winner.

Mr Waters said the experience, and the people he'd met in Canada, had been second to none.

"I'll take home new friends and new contacts in the phone," he said. "I met some incredible people here over the last couple of days."

He said being able to talk to past contestants and other competitors this year had given him an insight to the similarities and differences between cattle operations in Australia and other parts of the world.

"It's a good eye-opener coming over here," he said. "They do have to travel a lot of country to do business over here - both Canada and America are massive places like home, so there's a fair bit of scope to everything."

But after seeing how it's done elsewhere, Mr Waters said he loved the Gundagai-Wagga Wagga area he was working in and wanted to continue to grow there.

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