The tulip was introduced in the Netherlands in the late 1500s by merchants who brought it from Turkey. In 1620 the tulip was the most fashionable flower, a status symbol in the Netherlands.
In a short time there was a frenzied race among the members of the middle class to overcome in possession of the rarest tulips.
In 1623 a single bulb of a specific tulip quality could cost as much as a thousand Dutch guilders (the average annual income at the time was 150 guilders). Tulips were also exchanged for land, cattle and houses.
In 1635 a record price was paid for the most famous bulb: the Semper Augustus, was sold for 600 florins in the city of Harleem the largest center of tulip exchanges.
Some traders sold bulbs that had just been planted or that they intended to plant (in fact, futures on tulips). This was nicknamed "Trade of the Wind".
A State Edict of 1610 declared this practice illegal by denying the nature of legal coercion to this kind of contracts, but it was not possible to stop negotiating.
In February 1637, as tulip traders could no longer inflate prices for bulbs, the bubble burst. People began to think that the demand for tulips could no longer be maintained at that level, and this opinion spread as the panic among those who had invested increased.
Some held contracts to buy tulips at prices ten times higher than those of a collapsed market while others found themselves owning bulbs that were worth a tenth of what they had paid. Hundreds of Dutch: businessmen and dignitaries fell into disrepair.
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