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Tulip Mania
Also Known As Tulipomania
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A period in the Dutch Republic, peaking in the winter of 1636 to 1637, during which contract prices for tulip bulbs, especially rare virus-streaked broken varieties, rose to extraordinary levels before collapsing in February 1637. It is traditionally presented as history's first recorded speculative bubble and a byword for irrational market mania, though the scale of the traditional account is itself a live dispute among economic historians.
The traditional account, repeated in most general reference works, treats the episode as an irrational, economy-wide speculative bubble. The economic historian Peter Garber and others who have gone back to the surviving contract and notarial records argue the traditional account overstates both the prices actually paid and the economic damage the collapse caused, since most of the trading ran through forward contracts among a comparatively small circle of specialist growers and merchants rather than the general public, and few buyers ever paid the peak contract prices in cash. Both readings are represented here rather than picking one as settled.
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Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Tulip Mania
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.Associated With: South Sea Bubble, South Sea Bubble
2. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationTulip maniaQuote, Tulip mania
in February 1637, tulip bulb contract prices collapsed abruptly and the trade of tulips ground to a halt
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