Tulip mania: the classic story of a Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong

Claims Supported by This Source

1. Only 37 individuals who spent more than 300 guilders on bulbs can be identified. 300 guilders was equivalent to a master craftsman's annual income.
2. The most expensive bulb was about 5,000 guilders, the price of a well-equipped house. Many bulbs were much cheaper.
3. No chain of buyers longer than five people could be found. Transactions took place in taverns and neighborhoods, and participants were mainly merchants and skilled craftsmen, connected by family, religion, and neighborhood ties.
4. The bulbs were in the ground, and no payment was exchanged until delivery in May–June. The collapse in February 1637 resulted in the loss of paper profits; those who bought and sold on paper after the summer of 1636 lost nothing.
5. Not a single bankruptcy could be specifically attributed to Tulip Mania, and the Dutch economy was unaffected.
6. The collapse was likely caused not by the entry of amateurs, but by the unsustainability of the price rise in the first five weeks of 1637 and fears of oversupply.
7. The Court of Holland advised parties to negotiate and settle out of court; the authorities' response was slow and hesitant.
8. Genealogy of the myth: satirical songs and pamphlets from 1637 → late 17th-century writers → late 18th-century German history of inventions (English translation) → Mackay 1841. The plague influence theory is inconsistent with the fact that the price peak occurred as the epidemic was waning (January 1637).

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