Chicago Board of Trade building c.1900.
It is time for an upgrade to the "CBOT" or Chicago Board of Trade tab above. The tab/page was originally created over a decade ago as I began to roll up what were more obvious stamps and cancels used in business at the Chicago Board of Trade, where grain commission, milling companies, livestock, and other businesses could speculate on the future prices of commodities or outright purchase them. Famously, the Board established standard contracts for grades of grains, like #2 Wheat, which could be bought and sold as futures with fixed dates for delivery, hence the World War I revenue stamps with "Future Delivery" overprinted on them. During the 1898 tax period, there were no special stamps to pay future delivery taxes, though futures contracts were clearly taxed in the 1898 War Revenue Law:
"Upon each sale, agreement of sale, or agreement to sell, any products or merchandise at any exchange, or board of trade, or other similar place, either for present or future delivery, for each one hundred dollars in value of said sale or agreement of sale or agreement to sell, one cent, and for each additional one hundred dollars, or fractional part thereof in exces of one hundred dollars, one cent: Provided, That on every sale or agreement of sale or agreement to sell as aforesaid there shall be made and delivered by the seller to the buyer a bill, memorandum, agreement, or other evidence of such sale, or agreement to sell, to which there shall be affixed a lawful stamp or stamps in value equal to the amount of the tax on such sale."
This law applied to stock and other similar exchanges, such that lawyers for exchanges and boards of trade in large cities across the United States quickly had their lawyers assess their tax liabilities, with their conclusions leading to highly collectible stamps and documents canceled by their users. The BEP did not produce special stamps for future delivery during the 1898 tax period.
Unlike like the New York Stock Exchange where stocks were usually traded in multiples of 100 and where dollar value stamps were the norm, the value of futures contracts and the tax rate meant that the use of battleship stamps was more common, and that the denomination(s) of the stamps on the contract or memo might include any or all of the documentary battleships stamps. A typical example:
A standard memo of sale at the Chicago Board of Trade in 1901; James P. Molloy selling to Weare Commission Company, with 36 cents tax on the sale of contracts for December 1901 wheat. Price as of October 21, 1901. James Molloy was member #4623 of the CBOT; Charles and Portus Weare were CBOT members 1684 & 1685, respectively.
Because hundreds of thousands of these types of memos were generated at the CBOT, and there happened to be many stamp collectors in the Chicago area in the early 20th century, any reasonably medium to large sized accumulation of loose documentary battleship stamps today is likely to a include few stamps that were canceled by firms at the CBOT. Some of the stamps have the full name of the firm, some only have initials, so some work in cancel identification is necessary.
The key tool of the trade in the cancel identification process is knowledge of or a searchable database of the lists of members of the Chicago Board of Trade throughout the 1898 tax period:
Lists of members of the Chicago Board of Trade:
A database for New York Stock Exchange brokers has been developed that is available on request to 1898revenues@gmail.com that is searchable across the tax period for names and initials to aid in cancel identification. A similar database needs to be developed for the lists above. That project will begin this year, especially if I can figure out a way to make AI work for me in the process.
Meanwhile, simpler cancels that have full names, like that on the memo above, or with a relatively complete cancels like that below, can be matched to names in membership lists, as with the two Fyffe brothers below in CBOT members list from 1900:
Meanwhile, since Board of Trade members were last considered in any detail on this site more than 12 years ago, the web has seen a flowering of available material to support collectors of these cancels:
The American Elevator and Grain Trade, with its extraordinary front page, was a weekly trade journal published in Chicago. The issues may be found online on many different servers, and are replete with advertisements and articles on commission traders like those that traded at the CBOT and in other cities and boards of trade. A short article on the firm of Grier & Zeller in the May 15, 1901 edition of American Elevator & Grain Trade reported on the company's dissolution. No point in looking for Grier & Zeller cancels in 1902:
More typically relevant for the 1898 collector are the business card and other advertisements, like this example for Milmine, Bodman & Company:
The Grain Dealers Journal was also a weekly published in Chicago, with less of a focus on grain elevators and grain elevator machinery than The American Elevator and Grain Trade.
The Grain Dealers Journal published dozens of grain dealer cards, expecially from Chicago. The next two journals focused on grain millers and their needs, from access to grain to the equipment to mill it.
Published in St. Louis, The Modern Miller included reporting and adverts from Chicago and millers and wheat trader from around the United States.
E. S. Woodworth & Co., based in Minneapolis, with an advert in the May 28, 1904 edition of the The Commercial West.
Lastly, the volume below provides photos and bios of many of the prominent members of the CBOT during the 1898 tax period:
