This was done by a good friend who was knee deep in the industry -
Tobacco Auctions Making a Comeback?
by Yarddawg, AKA Doug Grimes
by Yarddawg, AKA Doug Grimes
For most of the last century August created a special stir and air of excitement for local tobacco farmers as the leaf auctions opened. It was an annual late summer ritual. The streets of Winston-Salem and many other communities throughout the southeast were filled with the sweet perfumed aroma of the golden leaf. To this day not many smells will rival that of freshly cured tobacco. The type mostly grown around here is famous and known throughout the world as Flue-Cured Virginia or Bright Leaf. The sale of the crop put food on the table, clothed the family, paid for college educations, bills, and afforded a decent lifestyle for many hard working folks. Despite its controversial reputation, tobacco farmers are still a viable part of many communities in Forsyth County. Controversy is nothing new for tobacco. It goes back to Sir Walter Raleigh's expeditions in the late 1500's. Tobacco remains a resilient weed in many ways.
For almost forty years I was involved in the leaf tobacco auctions and leaf trade as a buyer. When I first entered the business it was considered an honorable profession. Despite the popular notion and negativity in vogue today, tobacco farmers and tobacco workers are good, honest, hardworking folks. I traveled around the world buying tobacco. As I like to say from America to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between. Beginning in the late 1990's tobacco companies started to re-think tobacco auctions. By 2001 nearly every company was entering into contracts with farmers directly to grow tobacco. These contracts all but killed tobacco auctions. By around 2005 or 2006 auctions were no more. The old auction system was certainly not perfect. The new contracting system isn't either. Sometimes change can bring about unintended consequences. The reasons are complex and too difficult to explain simply or effectively here. There is a small movement afoot to re-establish auctions. I witnessed one such attempt on August 17 in Rural Hall in an old unused tobacco warehouse. Yes there is a tobacco auction in Forsyth County once again. There is another attempt to revive the auction in both Danville, Virginia and Wilson, North Carolina with something akin to a "silent auction". But the one here is an honest to goodness, real, live, old fashioned tobacco auction. There will be a few more auction sales in Rural Hall in the coming weeks. In case anyone is wondering, it is open to the public and is an interesting spectacle if you've never seen one. Right now the chances of a successful long-term revival appear slim. But who knows?
As a way of introduction to the uninitiated, allow me to introduce you to a five minute video narrated by Mr. Page Roberts, retired tobacco auctioneer. Page won the 1982 World Tobacco Auctioneer Championship competition, beating out about 50 others, which was sponsored by RJ Reynolds for several years as part of its "Pride In Tobacco" campaign. You will not meet a finer human being or professional than Page Roberts. Simply put he was one of the best ever. Page, a Virginia native, auctioneered in Winston-Salem for many years. This is part of my history and the history of many locals whether directly or indirectly or even not involved with the industry. Tobacco is still an important part of Winston-Salem's past, present, and future. I think many will enjoy this short and informative history of the Tobacco Auctioneer. I should also mention that the auction in Rural Hall was led by another class act and another former World Champion Auctioneer, Chuck Jordan, who currently resides in Winston-Salem. But if you know Chuck please don't tell him I called him a class act.
13 comments:
Bo,
A typical flue-cured tobacco auction season lasted for 60 days. A typical tobacco buyer for a major company would, conservatively, buy about 125,000 lbs per day. Using an average selling price of $1.70 per pound that comes to circa $212,500 x 60 days = $12,750,000. Oh I forgot to mention, in the auction heyday there were 56 auctions happening simultaneously each day from Mt.Airy, NC to Live Oak, Fla. That's, give or take, $765,000,000 in 60 days and that number is very conservative also. Probably closer to $1 billion. The auctions were vital to many small towns throughout the southeast. And I haven't even talked about the Burley auctions but I think you get the economics of it.
It was fun. Another amazing aspect was it was either 95 degrees F for flue-cured or freezing cold, sometimes 3 or 4 below zero F and always dusty and the auctioneers would loudly chant for 4-6 hours per day in those conditions. I have no idea how their voices held up.
How very fortunate I feel to have found your blog. As a native northern Virginian my recent trip to a working tobacco farm felt like traveling in a time machine.
I was treated to an introduction of proper cultivation and curing by a wonderful gentleman. Photographs simply cannot capture the majesty of mature tobacco in full bloom.
No other crop requires the intensive management. There is no adequate machine with the sensitivity of human hands to nurse, coax and coddle the full potential of each plant.
Regardless of your opinion of tobacco products, it will serve you well to see first hand the manual labor and experience still in practice today much as it was 150 years ago.
It is like walking into the pages of a history book complete with sounds, smells and textures. I stand in awe of the farmers raising the crop. God bless america!
Where would one find a reliable, public source for tobacco pricing?
YieldHog - I would see if through his profile if you can reach Yarddawg above - he is an old tobacco buyer for one of the big two. - By the way I do a little HY trading as well - great market and widely misunderstood.
So, do the big companies still buy a little US tobacco at auction, or only through contracts?
Anon - yes, they buy from the auctions.
Is the auction still going? I am an Indiana boy that is an auctioneer and LOVES to hear the cahnt of a tobacco auctioneer! I wish that I would have grown up about 75 years earlier and in the Southeast. I very much wanting learning more abou this lost art and way of life. I have talked serveral times about taking some trips into Virgina and North Carolina and try to learn some more about these auctions and warehouses. Any help on where to locate the auction and any museums or sources of information would be reatly appreciated! Thanks for the answers and help. Scott S
Scott -there is still one here just outside of Winston-Salem. - Click on Yarddawg's profiel and shoot him an email - he is a retired buyer for the tobacco industry and has taken me to the auction. I recorded it in a blog post this last Summer if you scroll through the posts you will find it.
I found a list of quotas required from each commonwealth, written in 1780 for the Revolutionary War. In the list is an abbreviation for the amount of tobacco. The old hand-written script looks like "Hhds". Example: Virginia's quota was 6000 Hhds of tobacco. Would this refer to bundles of tobacco leaves? What is the word?
Roger,
I think you're talking about 'Hands' of tobacco, although my exposure to Tobacco Auctions was in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, our season was in your winter, and a number of American auctioneers used to spend a good part of their year in Africa! One of them had his own (weekly?) radio show, and I'm wondering if it could have been Page Roberts or Chuck Jordan … this would have been around the early to mid 1960s. (From memory, the explanation of the different chants was very similar to the one given by the gentleman who had this radio show.)
My father was a warehouseman and tobacco auctioneer and it was not unusual to hear him chanting in the shower. His chant was unusual in that it could be understood compared to some auctioneers I heard. The tobacco business really was a way of life and auctioneering an art and it saddens me to know that it is a dying life style and art form. We were from the same town as Page and his video brought tears to my eyes for that lost way of life. Best regards to Page and his family. Debra Sizemore Boyd
My father was a buyer for Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland from 1948-1972. After retirement, he worked for a couple of other companies on contract. When he lay dying in 1999, he went in and out of a coma. Once while falling deeply asleep, I performed a short auctioneer's chant with prices from his era of buying. As I chanted the prices upward, he raised his hand and place an imaginary bid on the imaginary pile I was auctioning. While not an auctioneer, I had heard them so often, I felt I was "qualified" to do this for him one last time. It is a moment I shall remember forever.
My father was a buyer for Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain and Ireland from 1948-1972. After retirement, he worked for a couple of other companies on contract. When he lay dying in 1999, he went in and out of a coma. Once while falling deeply asleep, I performed a short auctioneer's chant with prices from his era of buying. As I chanted the prices upward, he raised his hand and place an imaginary bid on the imaginary pile I was auctioning. While not an auctioneer, I had heard them so often, I felt I was "qualified" to do this for him one last time. It is a moment I shall remember forever.
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