a [1968] price of $0.20 per share would have been deeply strange. In the olden days a whole of (meaningless) meaning was associated with the nominal stock price.

As a guess, it seems possible that the price you are seeing from whatever source you're using is already split adjusted?

Exxon has a look-up feature for historical prices going back to March 7, 1980, and the price was $3.60 (split adjusted), so Jim's hypothesis seems plausible.

Adjusting for dividends paid is the other major issue here. On this site: macrotrends.net - Stock price history you can find the historical price of Exxon stock going back a bit farther, to 1970, and the price adjusted for splits AND dividends was 50c; it wa about $1.20 in March, 1980, so Exxon's prices are probably NOT adjusted for dividends, whereas the macrotrends prices are.

So your 20c per share price sounds plausible if it is adjusted for both splits and dividends. Since there have been 4 2:1 splits since 1980 (and 5 since 1968), that would mean that the $3.60 price in 1980 was really $57.60 at the time ($3.60*2^4). The price in 1968 is impossible to calculate, but it would have been much higher than $0.20*2^5=$6.40, given that that $0.20 price is adjusted down for dividends paid out over time, which have been substantial.

dtb