I grew up in the 1950s in the heart of the bright leaf tobacco belt in the Carolinas. As a boy (8 to 12 years old) I spent my summers working on my grandmother's small tobacco farm near Mullins SC. Tobacco was a labor intensive business in those days, so we relied extensively on migrant "colored" help during the peak tobacco cropping season. Hard work but the pay was good.
The men worked in the field, cropping tobacco leaves and putting them into the mule-drawn "drag" -- which was a crude high-sided sled, narrow enough to fit between the rows and large enough to carry 1,000 pounds of wet tobacco. The women and children worked at the barn stringing the wet leaves onto tobacco sticks using cotton twine.
I was the "drag boy" (yes, that's what we were called) who drove the empty drag to the field, exchanged it for the waiting full drag, which I drove back to the barn and unloaded the wet tobacco for the ladies at the barn.
Did I say the pay was good? Croppers were paid $4.00/day, barn help (including me) got $3.00. Everyone got paid the same: family, sharecropper, neighbors, and migrant workers. More after the knotted tobacco leaves...
Later, during my college years (early 1960s) I worked summers for American Tobacco Company on the tobacco market in Mullins SC. I worked as a "pull boy". That's right, I had graduated from being a "drag boy" to being a "pull boy" and making 50¢/hr. A pull boy works as a side-kick to a tobacco buyer at the fast-moving auction. His job is to inspect every basket of tobacco bought by his buyer to make sure he's getting what he's paying for.
You see, in those days tobacco was sorted into grades by the farmer, with bright leaves bringing the highest prices. The carefully graded leaves were neatly stacked in baskets, about 200 lb each, and arranged in rows along the warehouse floor. In most cases, farmers did a good job of presenting the product of their hard work and the buyers would bid a fair price.
But occasionally a basket would not bring a strong bid and that's where the pinhooker would come in. Pinhookers were speculators who would canvass the warehouse before the auction looking for baskets of improperly graded tobacco. He would bid low and if his bid was successful he would re-grade the tobacco, separating the trashy leaves from the better grade. If successful, he could turn a substantial profit without ever getting his hands dirty working in the fields.
I think it's fair to say, nobody liked pinhookers. If all they did was make a markup for value provided, that might be OK. But you can't get rich playing the game that way. Pinhookers were known for a few dirty tricks. First, was to simply remove the visible bad leaves and bury them deep inside the stack. Just rearrange things to make the product look more appealing. That's why the tobacco company paid me so well to pull samples from the inside of the stack to check for consistency.
The other trick was the common bribe. Pinhookers would carry a pocket full of paid gift cards from local liquor stores. Before the auction, they would slip a few cards to their favorite buyers to express thanks in advance for the high bid they were going to get on their graded tobacco. A wink and a nod and the pinhooker made more money on that tobacco in a few hours than the farmer made all year.
You see, pinhookers don't produce anything. They simply exploit the work of others. And they'll do whatever it takes to maximize their profit. Cheating is a way of life for them. Say anything, do anything, the end justifies the means.
I don't know where the name "pinhooker" came from. But, I do think it's a good name to pin on a certain presidential candidate.
Mitt Romney: "Pinhooker"
3:53 PM PT: WOW! Thanks to all of you for making my humble effort worthwhile. I am honored beyond belief.