row of pins

From the disposable rows of pins used in sewing.

row of pins

1. (idiomatic, dated, chiefly in the negative) An insignificant thing, a whit.

   Synonym: hill of beans

   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor: A Cyclopaedia […] , volume 1, page 358:

     “ […] they wouldn’t let us have even a row of pins without the money for ’em—no, not if we was to drop down dead for want of bread in their shops.”

   • 1956, Carlile Aylmer Macartney, October Fifteenth: A History of Modern Hungary, 1929–1945, volume 1, page 109:

     He knew that big nations did not care a row of pins for small nations, but only used them as pawns, and he knew that the role of a pawn in a game is, too often, to be taken.

   • 1963 October 14, John McFarland, Revenue Act of 1963: Hearings Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate, Eighty-Eighth Congress, Fifth Session, on H.R. 8363 […] , page 608:

     As far as the admissions tax is concerned, it doesn’t amount to a row of pins anyway.