Haarlem auction fails
On February 3, 1637, a routine bulb auction in the town of Haarlem opened to no bidders. The news spread through the tavern trading networks within days. Within three months, prices collapsed 99 percent across the Netherlands. Buyers refused to honor futures contracts. Dutch courts declined to enforce the obligations, effectively voiding the market. The province of Holland eventually ruled that contracts could be settled for 3.5 percent of the agreed price, a de facto wipeout.
Charles Mackay's 1841 account 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions' turned Tulip Mania into the archetype of speculative folly. Modern economic historians argue the story was exaggerated, but the shape of the episode — credit, mania, refusal-to-pay, collapse — set the template for everything that followed.
01 · Tulip Mania
Dutch tulip bulbs — specifically, the ones infected with a mosaic virus that produced striped 'broken' blooms — became the speculative asset of the 1630s. At the peak, a single Semper Augustus bulb traded for more than a luxurious Amsterdam canal house. Then, one February morning in 1637, a Haarlem auction failed. Prices collapsed 99% inside three months.
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