Orange Tulip
Tulips are pretty flowers.
So pretty in fact it caused an outright hysteria in the 1630s. A hysteria on such a grand scale, it is said to have created the first recorded speculative bubble and subsequent burst.
Here is some detailed information from the Library of Congress, taken from a Harper’s Magazine article of 1876. Click on the link tilted “View the page images (at Cornell University)”:
Library of Congress – Tulip Mania
Inside the link from Cornell, you can read about the worth of the tulip at the height of the hysteria:
Tulip Prices
And here is one last link to a Tulip Mania article, from Harper’s Magazine again, this time the year is 1850, a little earlier than the previous article.
Fascinating, yes?
–Todd, the intern.
***Update – Using the purchasing power calculator at Measuring Worth, today the price of a single tulip would be equivalent to $14,459.00!
Tulips aren’t that pretty!