Tulip Mania was a period in the Dutch Golden Age where tulip bulbs were contractually sold by weight, while still in the ground, with only a promissory paper note to indicate details of the bulb.
Growers, speculators, and tulip traders signed contracts before a notary; effectively, a type of futures market.
At the height of tulipmania (1636) many believed the Tulip ‘Semper Augustus’ to be the holy grail of all tulip bulbs; it was the most remarkable flower and celebrated at the time for its beauty and rarity. And because it was desirable, it was costly, and because it was scarce, it was coveted.
A mystery at the time, the striped detail in the tulip petal was caused by a virus carried by aphid insects (it wasn’t until 1928 that British mycologist Dorothy Cayley discovered an aphid-borne disease was casing this, now commonly known as ‘mosaic virus’), which ultimately weakened and killed the bulb - that which buyers were speculatively trading on.
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