1942 was a special year at the CBOT and I'm grateful to add this piece to my collection for the simple reason that memberships were at the lowest price ever. CBOT memberships traded as low as $25 in 1942 as World War 2 resulted in a large amount of trading restrictions and price fixing by the government. It got so bad that I have read reports that some people tried to give memberships away just so they wouldn't have to continue to pay dues but not suprisingly, the potential recipient declined as they didn't want to be on the hook for dues. To give you a perspective on how far the price fell, memberships traded at a low of $800 in 1900 and as high as $62,000 in 1929. All figures are unadjusted for inflation.