Slabs & Pigs

Last week the New York Commodity Exchange celebrated its first anniversary under one roof. Silk had been dull for more than a year. Hide sales had dropped 47,000,000 lb. Copper, restricted by NRA price controls, had been inactive for months, as had tin, affected by cartels abroad. Trading in silver futures slumped off three weeks ago when the Silver Purchase Act slapped a 50% tax on the profits of silver speculators. Only rubber continued to be active. Last week the Commodity Exchange, casting about for other staples in which its 950 members could do business, established a futures market for lead pigs and zinc slabs, heretofore on a spot basis.

The first sales were held up 25 minutes while City Comptroller Joseph D. McGoldrick hurried over from City Hall to make a speech. At the sound of the gong, Commodity Exchange President Jerome Lewine stepped forward to buy a September lead contract at 3.70-c- per lb. A zinc contract was sold at 4.40-c- per lb. Both transactions were for 60,000 lb.--the trading unit selected by the Exchange. In a rush of trading which continued all day, sales of lead futures reached 1,380,000 lb., zinc futures 2,700,000 Ib.

Manhattan's historic Hanover Square has been a trading place for staples ever since clipper ships poked their prows across its cobblestones in the time of George I. The Commodity Exchange was formed there in May 1933 by a merger of the Rubber, Silk, Metals and Hide Exchanges. All four had been sponsored by the same group of commodity traders-- Francis Robinson Henderson, who made and lost fortunes in rubber; Lawyer Julius B. Baer; Jerome Chester Cuppia, partner in E. A. Pierce & Co.; and Jerome Lewine, partner in H. Hentz & Co. A fifth venture, the Burlap & Jute Exchange, was a failure. One year ago the Commodity Exchange moved to its present quarters in the International Telephone & Telegraph Building, a few doors west of Hanover Square. On its first anniversary, the Exchange had handled almost a billion and a quarter dollars worth of sales.* Seats originally valued at $900 are now worth $2,200.

*New York Stock Exchange sales for 1933: $4,021,000,000.

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