A Trip to the Tobacco Market - A Disappearing Market

Growing up I would visit the visit this page market with Granddaddy every chance I got. There I was never bored, well why not a small bored even when it meant paying hours, but it was always enjoyed by me. I can still remember the smells and sounds of the marketplace within my mind.The song of the auctioneer walking down the lines of tobacco with the customers following him is difficult to forget. There was row after row of cured tobacco with each number of programs brought by a different farmer expecting to get the very best price of your day for his sale.Several years ago when I was working as an account manager for a commercial preservation service agency I visited a cigarette plant near Macon, Georgia. I'd to park my car near the raw material getting docks at the back of the facility. As soon as I moved out of my car I can smell the dried, cured tobacco and a sense of nostalgia washed over me in a flood of thoughts of the tobacco market and Granddaddy. As quite a long time ex-smoker who hates the smell of cigarettes I must say I love the smell of cured tobacco.Most decades being the first to the industry was very important. Not as a spot of pleasure but because the best money was taken care of the early crops and by the period of year money was tight and the income was needed seriously to keep going. The first markets to open were the South Georgia markets and typically Granddaddy and number of the different local small farmers could get together and put a lot of their tobacco on a big vehicle and drive from New York to the Georgia markets to be in on the first sales. I never surely got to get on these trips.There were lots of local tobacco markets in Eastern North Carolina and when they opened Granddaddy would listen carefully during lunchtime to the market reports on the radio and study them in the magazine trying to find which market was spending the best price. I can remember him saying after the report, "We are going to the market in Greenville tomorrow with lots. Would you like to come?" My solution was usually "Yes." We would load the truck with treated, categorized tobacco and get up before dawn the next day and off we'd move. You'd to get there early because you wished to get a spot near the beginning of the market line, not at the beginning but near it. Granddaddy knew all the little hints to greatly help get a better value for his crop.When you came and checked in they'd give you a whole lot number for your sale. The buyers from the different tobacco companies would commit the first element of the day running around and taking a look at the different lots and making records for the market. When the market began the auctioneer would begin going down the lines of tobacco and hesitating, maybe not stopping, at each lot and never missing a of his bidding track. The buyers could follow behind him indicating their estimates with a nod, a hand wave or various other particular way. There have been other folks alongside the sale would be written up by the auctioneer who just it was suggested and would leave a couple of copies of the sale paper along with the lot. One was for the organization buying the lot and the other was for the player to cash out with. Granddaddy would get his copy to the cashier screen and they'd pay him on the spot.The tobacco markets were often a thrilling place to go and back in those times it played an essential part in the history and local economy. Goals could be made are damaged by what occurred at the marketplace on any given day. A years work would be counted by the results of a few days at the market.Tobacco is not any longer the golden leaf plant that drove the economy of many southern states and just like the scents and sounds of the North Carolina tobacco areas are fading in my memories, they're also fading in our history.