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MIRRORING DIFFERENT FOLLIES
The Character of the 1720 Bubble in the Dutch Republic1
By Oscar Gelderblom and Joost Jonker
Utrecht University
Comments are welcome at [email protected] or [email protected]
This version, 9 October 2009
Abstract
The 1720 bubbles are generally taken as the first international speculative boom and bust cycle demonstrating
the financial integration between Paris, London and Amsterdam. Yet events in the Dutch Republic differed
markedly from those in France and Britain. Share prices followed a similar trajectory to London but a bubble on
the French or British scale never developed. The 1720 folly assumed a very peculiar form in the Republic, that of
local magistrates rushing to push the interests of their communities through the creation of a large number of
joint-stock companies for insurance, trade, and other business activities. Only a small number of these
companies were actually constituted and no more than a few generated any share trading at all. Investors showed
themselves quite capable to sort the viable proposals from the also-rans. As a result, the speculative craze and
subsequent crisis did not have a deep impact, even though they remained a source of wonderment and fun.
1
The authors are indebted to Dave Smant for data sharing and suggestions and to Peter Koudijs for his thorough
discussion of the paper with us. We also want to thank participants in various seminars for comments.
1
Introduction
The massive debts incurred by France, Britain, and the Dutch Republic during the War of the
Spanish Succession (1701-1714) forced their respective governments to carry through major
reorganizations of public finance. The Dutch authorities unilaterally reduced the interest rates
on public bonds to 2.5% and got away with it because the country’s wealth owners had few
alternative investment opportunities. France and Britain opted for the securitization of
government bonds. In Paris, John Law enticed bondholders to convert their annuities in shares
of the Compagnie des Indes (often referred to as the Mississippi Company), while in Britain
the South Sea Company obtained the right to buy up public debt with money from the sales of
company shares. Investors in both countries swapped their illiquid and insecure public debt
titles for stock, and their eagerness to do so created a bubble in 1720 with stock prices rising
to ten times their nominal value. This climate stimulated the floating in the Dutch Republic of
several dozen local joint-stock companies for insurance, trade, and a range of other economic
purposes.2
The Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles of 1720 stand as the defining event of modern
financial market integration, in Larry Neal’s words, ‘the first international stock market boom
and bust in capitalist Europe’.3 Exchange rates, bullion movements and securities prices tied
Paris, London and Amsterdam closely together. One wonders, however, how deep that
integration went. The pattern of events in the Republic differed markedly from that in France
and Britain, a phenomenon variously ascribed to the Dutch economy having started to trail
international developments, or to the Dutch capital market being more mature and stable than
the French and British ones.4 Local companies were promoted throughout the country, but
speculation in the Dutch East India Company (VOC) remained limited, and the West India
Company (WIC) tried but failed to engineer a substantial increase its capital.
2
The English bubble is analyzed in: Larry Neal, The Rise of Financial Capitalism, International Capital
Markets in the Age of Reason (Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1990). For an overview of French events: François
Velde, “Was John Law’s System a Bubble? The Mississippi Bubble Revisited”, in: Jeremy Atack and Larry Neal
(ed.) The Origin and Development of Financial Markets and Institutions. From the Seventeenth Century to the
Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 99-120.
3
L. Neal, The Rise of Financial Capitalism, 62. On integration cf. also R.C. Michie, ‘The invisible stabilizer,
asset arbitrage and the international monetary system since 1700’, in: Financial History Review 5 (1998) 5-26;
E.S. Schubert, ‘Innovations, debts and bubbles: international integration of financial markets in Western Europe,
1688-1720’, in: Journal of Economic History 48 (1988) 299-306; idem, 'Arbitrage in the foreign exchange
markets of London and Amsterdam during the 18th century', in: Explorations in Economic History 26 (1989) 120; M.T. Boyer-Xambeu, G. Deleplace, L. Gillard, ‘A la recherche d’un age d’or des marchés financiers:
intégration et efficience au XVIIe siècle’, in: Cahiers d’économie politique (1992) 33-65.
4
E. Laspeyres, Geschichte der volkswirthschaftliche Anschauungen der Niederländer und ihrer Litteratur zur
Zeit der Republik (Leipzig 1863), 273; J. de Vries, A. van der Woude, The first modern economy, success, failure,
and perseverance of the Dutch economy, 1500-1815 (Cambridge UP: Cambridge 1997) 189.
2
Our understanding of events in the Republic is not made easier by the existing
confusion about what really happened. The most evocative evidence consists of the cartoons,
pamphlets and plays that circulated in the Dutch Republic and abroad while events were
unfolding. Many of these etchings and writings were eventually published in one single
volume, the Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid, together with the prospectuses of the local
companies floated in the Dutch Republic.5 Generations of print collectors and historians have
enjoyed The Great Mirror of Folly’s vivid scenes of speculators scrambling to get their share,
the company promotors pushing local magistrates to create their own schemes, and the
bankrupt investors fleeing from their creditors. Drawing heavily on the Groote Tafereel, older
authors such as Laspeyres and Vissering emphasized the fraudulent schemes boosting
irrationality, the losses sustained by stock traders and the collateral damage done to the Dutch
economy. 6 Ever since Groeneveld’s pioneering 1940 thesis, economic historians have
accepted his conclusion that the losses and damage were inconsequential, but they
nevertheless continue to describe the bubble in lurid terms.7 As a result we face a curious
discrepancy. By number of local companies launched and their proposed capital outlay, the
Dutch bubble was impressive enough; yet the overly familiar scenes of fraud, folly and frantic
speculation associated with them and the resulting collapse failed to leave a dent.
For all the attention historians have lavished on the Groote Tafereel and the events in
the Republic which helped to produce it, we still know very little about key aspects of the
Dutch 1720 bubble. Until now the scarcity of securities prices, for example, prevented us
from tracing the trajectory of events. The Dutch bubble lagged the French and British ones,
but we did not know by how much, nor how big it was and the precise date of bursting. The
explanations offered for this lack of impact also seem to fall just short. Authors have
5
A.H. Cole, The Great Mirror of Folly, an Economic-Bibliographical Study (Baker Library: Boston 1949); F. De
Bruyn, ‘Reading Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid: an emblem Book of the Folly of Speculation in the Bubble Year
1720’, in: Eighteenth-Century Life 24 (2000) 1-42; idem, ‘Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid and the Speculative
Bubble of 1720: a Bibliographical Enigma and an Economic Force’, in: Eighteenth-Century Life 24 (2000) 62-87; K.
Forrer, ‘De wereld is vol gekken, de ontstaansgeschiedenis van Het Groote Tafereel der Dwaasheid’, in: De
Boekenwereld 14 (1998) 106-124.
6
Laspeyres, Geschichte 273-277; S. Vissering, ‘Het groote tafereel der dwaasheid’, in: De Gids 20 (1856) 643-684.
We consulted an offprint from this article, with page numbers 1-44.
7
F.P. Groeneveld, De economische crisis van het jaar 1720 (Groningen 1940); C.H. Slechte, 'De Maatschappij van
Assurantie, Disonteering en Beleening der stad Rotterdam van 1720, bekeken naar haar produktiefactoren over de
periode 1720-1874', in: Rotterdams Jaarboekje 7th series, vol. 8 (1970) 252-310; idem, ‘Het aandeel van de
Rotterdamse regenten in de actie-handel van 1720’, in: Rotterdams Jaarboekje 7th series, vol. 10 (1972) 206-262;
idem, ‘Vianen en de spotprenten op de windhandel van 1720’, in: In het land van Brederode, historisch tijdschrift
voor het land van Vianen 2 (1977), 5-27; idem, 'Een noodlottig jaar voor veel zotte en wijze', de Rotterdamse
windhandel van 1720 (The Hague 1982); idem, ‘De firma List en Bedrog, de Provinciale Utrechtsche Geoctroyeerde
Compagnie (1720-1752)’, in: Jaarboek Oud Utrecht 1998 179-218; De Vries and Van der Woude, First modern
economy 152-154. Curiously enough, even Groeneveld describes the speculation as disastrous, while showing that
little actual damage was done.
3
exchanged the notion of experienced Dutch financiers effecting a timely withdrawal from
Paris and London for the macro-economic explanation of a more mature financial system
combined with prudent authorities refusing company projects involving the public debt for
equity swaps which started the French and British bubbles.8 Though financial maturity and
official prudence may provide the key to understanding the time lag between the three
bubbles and the lack of fallout from Paris and London, these aspects bring us no closer to
understanding the discrepancy between the apparent magnitude of the local bubble companies
and the Groote Tafereel scenes on one hand, and the limited impact of the crash on the other.
This paper analyzes the financial crisis of 1720 in the Dutch Republic, combining the
available evidence on the bubble companies with new securities prices.9 First we explore the
impact of foreign developments on the Dutch stock market. We use newspaper reports to
construct a new series of prices for British and Dutch chartered companies to find out to what
extent London’s speculative frenzy fueled demand for shares in the VOC and WIC. The
prices for local companies given in the newspapers show that, with the exception of one or
two insurance companies, these schemes hardly attracted any investors. The structural
economic decline from which so many towns suffered since the late seventeenth century
could not to be turned around by any influx of capital. Thus it would seem that the Groote
Tafereel, like the Tulipmania pamphlets of the 1630s, aimed at presenting a strong satire
rather than a true mirror of events.
2. The modest dimensions of the Dutch bubble
The financial crises in Britain and France do not seem to have hit Dutch investors very hard.
They took part in Law’s schemes and the Mississippi bubble but retreated well before the
bubble burst in May 1720. French cartoonists mocked this timely withdrawal with drawings
of Dutch bankers taking coach loads of money back to Holland.10 Punters in the Republic
8
De Vries and Van der Woude, First Modern Economy 153.
At the very time we collected these prices in the Leiden archive from the original newspapers, the same was
done from the newly available digital resource at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek by R.G.P. Frehen, W.N.
Goetzmann, K.G. Rouwenhorst ‘New Evidence on the First Financial Bubble’ NBER Working Paper No. 15332
(2009). Neither party knew of the other’s work until the two papers were published on the web within days of
each other, ours on Monday, theirs on Wednesday.
10
The reference to Dutch bankers being more experienced and cashing out early in Paris stems from an 18th
century French complaint and may thus be suspect; cf. A.E. Sayous, 'Les répercussions de l'affaire de Law et du
South Sea Bubble dans les Provinces Unies', in: Bijdragen tot de vaderlandsche geschiedenis en oudheidkunde 8:2
(1941) 57-86. French securities offered for sale in the Republic rapidly disappeared there because few investors
wanted to buy. Europische Mercurius January 1721, 12-13; cf. Vissering, ‘Groote Tafereel’ 14; Neal, Rise, 71.
9
4
more heavily engaged themselves in British securities trading.11 Their investments started in
Amsterdam in March and really took off in late May, hard on the heels of events in London.12
The overall damage appears to have been slight, however.13 Neither Amsterdam nor
Rotterdam saw a marked rise in bankruptcies following the crisis.14 Four very large
bankruptcies in Amsterdam were clearly linked to speculation in British and Dutch securities
and the bill traffic generated by it, but these cases occurred in 1721 and 1722, so the events of
1720 cannot be taken as the only cause.15 The coaches with creditors fleeing to sanctuaries
like Vianen and Culemborg depicted in the Groote Tafereel are a figment of the imagination.
The two cities did not accept all comers and asylum seekers had to offer convincing proof of
their innocence.16
Even if the Mississippi and South Sea bubbles caused little direct damage, they appear
to have fueled speculation in the Republic just the same. Some historians have marked the
Dutch bubble as a clear case of contagion from Britain, with British capital, speculators, and
company promoters crossing the North Sea once the London peak had passed.17 The almost
complete absence of securities prices renders it difficult to substantiate or refute this claim.18
The official Amsterdam current published prices for any imaginable commodity on a weekly
basis, but not for securities. The Amsterdamsche Courant started printing a clutch of share
prices only in 1723.19 Newspapers in Rotterdam and Leiden did report on stock trading in
Amsterdam and Rotterdam during the second half of 1720, however, and combined with a
single private price list from late September we have been able to construct a fairly
11
Groenveld, Economische crisis, 122-168, surveys the evidence from notarial records and merchants’
correspondence. The notarial archives in Rotterdam, The Hague and, to a markedly lesser degree, in Amsterdam,
are awash with powers of attorney for transactions in London. Presumably Amsterdam merchants had less
reason to go to a notary because they would have had a regular correspondent in London.
12
Vissering, ‘Groote tafereel’ 22.
13
Some Dutch traders successfully rode the South Sea bubble, buying shares while prices rising to sell before the
market collapsed: Neal, Rise, 111. Some London traders did likewise: P. Temin, H.J. Voth, ‘Riding the South
Sea bubble’, in: The American Economic Review 94(2004) 1654-1668.
14
W.F.H. Oldewelt, ‘Twee eeuwen Amsterdamse faillissementen en het verloop van de conjunctuur’, in: Tijdschrift
voor Geschiedenis (1962) 421-435; Gemeentearchief Rotterdam (GAR) archive no. 4395, ledgers of bankrupt
estates administered by the town secretary.
15
Groeneveld, Economische crisis 88-107 and 212-245.
16
M. Gijswijt-Hofstra, Wijkplaatsen voor vervolgden, asielverlening in Culemborg, Vianen, Buren. Leerdam en
IJsselstein van de 16de tot eind 18de eeuw (Bataafsche Leeuw: Dieren 1984) 129-137.
17
Slechte Noodlottig jaar 44, 47, 58-59, 73, 81-82.
18
Groeneveld, Economische crisis 166 note 1 gives a clutch of prices for a few companies probably culled from
the Brants archive in the Stadsarchief Amsterdam. We have chosen not to use them because there is no
indication at all what these prices reflect.
19
J.G. van Dillen, ‘Effectenkoersen aan de Amsterdamsche beurs 1723-1794’, in: Economisch-historisch jaarboek
17 (1931) 1-46.
5
comprehensive price series for the major British and Dutch companies as well as many of the
newly established local companies (see Appendix A and B).20
Some preliminary remarks are in order. Firstly, we have no idea how the two papers
obtained the data printed by them, and notably whether they were actual prices or quotes
given by somebody or other. We have reason to believe that at least some prices were quotes,
indeed spurious quotes, as will become clear presently. Secondly, the data show that, for all
its early and precocious development as a market, the Amsterdam securities trade still lacked
coordination with regards to price formation and in 1720 this often interrupted the flow of
information. For most of the period under consideration the Leidse Courant reported the
prices of British securities as having ‘no fixed price’, i.e. varying too widely to call, and this
happened repeatedly in the case VOC and WIC shares, too. The data concerning the one day
for which we have prices from two sources, 25 September, also show interesting variations.
These differences were caused by the fragmentation of the securities trade. Most trading
appears to have taken place outside exchange hours, in the mornings on Dam Square where
the cashiers dealt in money, and deep into the night in the coffee houses along the
Kalverstraat. Indeed, the Leiden paper sometimes reported evening trade prices in addition to
day prices, for instance on 30 August and repeatedly in September. We are not in a position to
comment on the extent to which this lack of coordination may have handicapped the securities
trade, but the fact that, in 1723, the Amsterdamsche Courant started printing prices for the
most heavily traded shares suggests that the events of 1720 showed up the disadvantages
arising from the lack of price coordination and a regular supply of information, causing
market participants to act.
Unfortunately the Rotterdamse Courant and the Leidse Courant data begin only in
July and thus leave us in the dark about the start of events. In March the VOC is said to have
traded at 700 per cent of par, rather lower than its normal range of 850-860, and the WIC at
80, around its normal price.21 From July Dutch share prices showed a similar overall pattern
20
The data were collected from the Rotterdamse Courant (Gemeentearchief Rotterdam) and the Leidse Courant
(Regionaal Archief Leiden); the private price current pictured in De Vries, Eeuw Effecten, 18. The
Gemeentearchief Rotterdam run of Rotterdamse Courant copies begins with the issue for 4 April 1718 followed
by 25 October 1719 and then 17 July 1720, but the Economisch Historische Bibliotheek Amsterdam (EHBA)
possesses (Call No. BC 255-1) a unique copy of the Groote Tafereel bound with various pamphlets not included
in other copies, amongst them the Rotterdamsche Courant for 3 and 10 July 1720. The Rotterdam newspaper
published the local prices of the day before, and the Amsterdam ones of two days previously; the Leiden paper
published Amsterdam and Rotterdam prices of the day before. All prices given in this paper are dated by the day
they were collected for publication.
21
Smith, Tijdaffaires 119, probably taking his cue from Vissering, ‘Groote Tafereel’ 29-30. We have been
unable to verify the source or find the exact date for these March prices. Both authors exaggerate the speculative
6
as the London ones, rising to a peak in late August and falling sharply from mid September.
On the 18th of that month trade in the Delft company shares, about which more below, was
still sufficiently buoyant for its board to launch a second share issue. A few days later the
climate had definitely turned. On the 21st of September the Monnikendam company halved
the amount required for the first instalment and announced the immediate opening of share
transfer facilities at offices in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, a sure sign of waning interest.22
Two days later the subscription for a company in Zwolle fell short of its target, despite heavy
advertising.23 Consequently Dutch share prices did not, as often suggested in the literature,
collapse following public disturbances between Amsterdam speculators on 5-6 October, but
already a few weeks earlier.24
Looking at the main companies quoted in more detail, Figure 1 shows share prices for
the VOC, WIC, Bank of England, South Sea Company, and East India Company. By early
July the VOC touched 1,160 and the WIC 188, an increase similar to that of the Bank of
England and the East India Company in Amsterdam, and considerably below the South Sea
Company’s trajectory. Thus the two Dutch companies were initially buoyed up by the
speculative climate imported from Britain, but hardly to bubble level.
[Figure 1 about here]
Nor would one expect the VOC or WIC share prices to have developed into a bubble, because
neither company received any additional economic privileges or incentives to spark
speculation. However, from the second half of July the trajectory of the two securities
diverged sharply. The VOC shares remained in the upper 1,100s and peaked at 1,210 on 19
August.25 Over the next two months the shares gradually fell back to their normal trading
range. By contrast, the WIC shares peaked at 575 on 28 August, more than seven times their
wave by giving 40 as the price for WIC shares at an unspecified date in 1719, but the Rotterdamsche Courant for
22 December 1717, 4 April 1718 and 23 October 1719 suggests the trading range to have been 80-90.
22
Verzameling tot waarschouwinge voor de nakomelinge van alle de projecten en conditien van de Compagnien van
assurantie, commercie en navigatie ... zoo wel die in gebruyk zijn gebragt als die door de Staten en Magistraten van
eenige provintien en steden zijn verworpen; mitsg. de reeden voor en tegen deselve, door verscheyde liefhebbers
uytgegeven, vertoonende de opkomst, voortgang en ondergang der actie, bubbel en wind-negotie, in Vranckryk,
England en de Nederlanden gepleegt in den jare 1720, met verscheyde autentique stukken (The Hague 2 vols 17711772) II 138-143; on the same day Medemblik also reduced its first instalment and opened transport facilities,
ibidem 57-62.
23
Van Dillen, ‘Effectenkoersen’ 11; W.J. Formsma, ‘De windhandel van 1720 in Overijssel’, in: Verslagen en
mededeelingen van de Vereeniging Overijsselsch Regt en Geschiedenis 60 (1945) 110-123, ibidem 116.
24
Slechte, Noodlottig jaar 108, puts the turn of events on October 11, but the Amsterdam city council’s reaction
to the brawl is dated October 6.
25
We have found nothing to corroborate a reported peak of 1,260, which appears rather high in relation to the
rest of the data anyway. Cf. Vissering, ‘Groote Tafereel’ 30, Van Dillen, ‘Effectenkoersen’ 15.
7
normal range.26 The trajectory of WIC shares looks suspiciously like a bubble, but it was not.
Lifted by the tide the board of the cash-strapped company began considering raising new
capital at the end of June, intending to use the Amsterdam debate about the need for insurance
companies for branching out in that direction.27 When the city council refused the WIC’s
request to start an insurance business, the company went ahead anyway and on 6 August
obtained permission from the Estates General to float 1,600 new shares priced probably at
250 per cent.28
This news was reported to have created a spectacular traffic jam, all coaches available
in The Hague having been hired to carry messengers to Amsterdam. In Rotterdam, wild
rumours circulated of Amsterdam prices having risen to 1,000.29 The issue was floated
between 9 and 19 August. However, only one hundred shares actually reached the market, for
the WIC had reserved no fewer than 1,500 shares for privileged insiders. The 1,600 shares of
3,000 guilders sold at 250 per cent should have yielded twelve million guilders, but in the end
the WIC obtained only 3.7 million guilders of new capital.30 A plausible explanation seems to
be that the board gave away 500 shares for free, presumably as bribes to officials, and another
1,000 at par to its long-suffering shareholders.31
Thus the peak in WIC prices does not appear to have been created by any enthusiasm
about the prospects of the Atlantic trade or insurance, as argued by Frehen, Goetzmann and
Rouwenhorst, but by a market squeeze.32 With so few new shares coming on the market
prices of the issue shot up, reaching 450 on August 24. The board immediately decided on a
second issue of 1,000 shares at 450, though the directors still had no idea what to do with the
26
Van Dillen, ‘Effectenprijzen’ 11, probably taking his cue from Groote Tafereel section Letters AZ to NN 7,
even mentions a peak of 600 for WIC shares at an unspecified date in 1720 for which we have found no
confirmation.
27
NA 1.05.01.02 no. 375, WIC Chamber Amsterdam board minutes 25, 27 June 1720.
28
NA 1.05.01.02 no. 447, WIC Chamber Amsterdam secret board minutes 29 July 1720, giving an issuing price
of 200 per cent, a realistic one at a time when the shares sold for 230-240. However, the issue was launched on
or about 9 August, when the shares traded around 340-350, and spurred by that the board probably increased the
issue price to 250 as reported by the magazine Europische Mercurius for August 1720, p. 149-154.
29
Rotterdamsche Courant 8 August 1720.
30
NA 1.05.06, no. 904, statement of revenues and costs 1675-1728; H. den Heijer, De geschiedenis van de WIC
(Walburg Pers: Zutphen 1994) 179.
31
NA 1.05.06, no. 5, WIC minutes Board of Ten 9 August (dividing shares over the company’s directors) and 18
September 1720 (setting aside shares in the second subscription for the Portuguese and Spanish ambassadors). The
calculation is as follows: the amount entered as new capital was 3,675,000 guilders (NA 1.05.06, no. 904, statement
of revenues and costs 1675-1728). Assuming 75,000 guilders deducted for printing, brokerage etc. making a total
collected of 3,750,000; minus 750,000 guilders for 100 shares of 3,000 guilders sold at 250 per cent leaves around 3
million or 1,000 shares sold at par and 500 given away for free.
32
Frehen, Goetzmann, and Rouwenhorst, ‘New Evidence’.
8
money.33 Launched on 13 or 14 September when share prices were already falling, the second
issue failed miserably. The company directors must have put considerable effort in supporting
it, for the WIC shares rose against the trend, but in the end the company collected a puny
7,500 guilders instead of the projected 13.5 million.34
Therefore the WIC’s share price trajectory looks more like a failed manipulation than
a bubble. Few investors were taken in by the company’s posturing, possibly because they
realized that the Caribbean trade offered insufficient scope for expansion, for another colonial
venture which had hoped to cash in met with the same fate. The IPO of the Sociëteit Berbice
envisaged the transformation of an existing and languishing private trading syndicate on the
Guyana coast into a joint-stock concern. The flotation of 3.2 million guilders launched early
in September attracted buyers for only 941 out of the 1,600 shares.35
3. Hothouse conditions
Though nothing in the way of a bubble developed, rising share prices at home and abroad did
succeed in creating a climate favorable to company promotion. Between June and October
1720 forty projected companies mushroomed with a total nominal capital of more than 800
million guilders, almost three times the Republic’s estimated GDP and forty times the
financial resources of VOC and WIC combined.36 This phenomenon was all the more
remarkable for the comparative rarity of joint-stock companies until then. The VOC and WIC
were the only publicly traded corporations. Ocean shipping, herring fisheries, milling, and
land reclamation projects did have a form of joint ownership with transferable shares, but
none of them were publicly traded. For all other economic activities private partnerships
33
NA 1.05.01.02 no. 5, WIC minutes Board of Ten, 9, 19 and 24 August 1720, the board setting the second issue
at 450 because the first one trades at that price; the Leidse Courant for 26 August indeed gives a price of 170210 for shares in the first subscription on the 24th.
34
On 12 September the printed subscription forms were not yet ready (NA 1.05.01.02 no. 5, WIC minutes Board
of Ten of that date); but the Leidse Courant of 16 September gives a price for the WIC’s second subscription in
Amsterdam on 14 September. NA 1.05.06, no. 904, a bundle of various papers including a handwritten statement of
revenues and costs 1675-1728 for the yield of the subscription; see also Den Heijer, Geschiedenis WIC 179. On 27
September the Board of Ten considered measures in support of the second issue, including buying up WIC shares
and warrants: NA 1.05.01.02 no. 5, WIC minutes Board of Ten of that date.
35
J.J. Hartsinck, Beschrijving van Guiana (Amsterdam 1770) 329-330; P.M. Netscher, Geschiedenis van de
koloniën Essequebo, Demerary en Berbice van de vestiging der Nederlanders aldaar tot op dezen tijd (Nijhoff:
The Hague 1888) 161.
36
J.P. de Korte, De jaarlijkse financiële verantwoording in VOC (Nijhoff: Leiden 1984) 2, Annex 1, valuing the
VOC’s debt plus equity at 15 million guilders; H. den Heijer, De geschiedenis van de WIC (Walburg Pers:
Zutphen 1994) 113, putting the WIC’s debt plus equity at 4.5 million guilders. The GNP for the Republic: De Vries
and Van der Woude, First Modern Economy 702.
9
sufficed.37 Once underway, the rage for local company promotion acquired its own
momentum. As the preamble to the Purmerend project put it disarmingly as early as midAugust: if so many merchants exerted themselves in oversubscribing projected companies and
in bidding up the shares, then launching another one had to make sense.38 With the exception
of two insurance companies in Middelburg and Rotterdam and a trading company in
Middelburg, all local company schemes shared the hallmarks of speculative enterprises in
combining a very large nominal capital with a low first instalment of one to six per cent and
an equally low paid-up capital.
A remarkably high number of projects, 32 out of 40 known initiatives, obtained
official approval (Table 1). They constituted themselves, collected subscriptions and issued
calls for payment of the first instalment. In the end, only eight companies survived the stage
of subscriptions and developed any business activities at all. Six of them became fully
operational, be it on a far more modest scale than originally envisaged. As for geographical
spread, Holland had a comfortable lead over the other provinces with 23 projects. Zeeland and
Overijssel came second with four each; Utrecht had one project. Friesland had two but they
were turned down by the provincial Estates, as was the case with the proposal from Arnhem
in Gelderland. Four national projects were launched in Amsterdam and The Hague. Finally
the city of Embden, located in Germany on the borders with the Republic, with which it
maintained close economic and political ties, also launched a company.
[Table 1 about here]
The most telling difference between the various projects listed in Table 1 is the timing of their
launch, tied to a distinct pattern of business purpose. After the early promotion of insurance
companies in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Middelburg there were three successive waves of
launches evidently triggered by cities reacting to moves in neighbouring cities: first during 11
July-25 July a largely southern Holland cluster with Delft, Schiedam, Gouda, and also
Middelburg; then from 14 August to 4 September in the northern part of the province Hoorn,
Purmerend, Edam, Monnikendam, Medemblik, Alkmaar, and Enkhuizen. The last wave
occurred from 11 September to 16 October with launches in several smaller towns in Holland,
Zeeland, and Overijssel.
37
E.J.J. van der Heijden, De ontwikkeling van de naamlooze vennootschap in Nederland vóór de codificatie (Van der
Vecht: Amsterdam 1908) 84-131.
38
Groote Tafereel companies section 3.
10
These successive waves largely overlapped with four different types of company
proposed. First came eight companies, all launched before the end of July in substantial
economic centres, sensibly organized and perfectly viable, all focusing on insurance except
for the Middelburgse Commercie Compagnie which partnered an insurance company.
Between 14 August and 3 September, this group was followed by a batch of ten projects from
small Holland towns vying with each other to catch the wave. Insurance figured prominently,
but now as often as not in tandem with wider purposes, notably trade, shipping, shipbuilding
and allied manufacturing activities such as ropemaking and sawmilling. Some companies also
embraced financial services like bill discounting and lombarding. In combination with a small
economic base, the widening of purpose rendered this group distinctly less viable than the
first one. The third set, launched between the 3rd and the 12th of September, consisted of
Britto’s fanciful national schemes.
The last group was the biggest and it stretched longest in time, from the 11th of
September to the 25th of October. It is in many ways the most striking one. None of the
companies proposed stood a chance of surviving. Business purposes widened further to
embrace a variety of ambitious aims, notably costly infrastructural projects, losing all realism
in the process. The Arnhem proposal, rejected by the provincial Estates of Gelderland,
covered the entire economy: manufacturing, trade, lotteries, lombarding, insurance, river tolls,
and other operations to be announced but kept secret in the prospectus so as not to alert the
competition. At this time, with share prices past their peak and rapidly falling after midmonth, no sensible company promoter would have risked his own time, reputation and money
to launch a company, unless paid to do so by magistrates eager to promote the interests of
their communities. The Zwolle magistrate sent two representatives to Amsterdam to enlist
support for launching their company. They hired the broker Jacob Raket, who on 9 November
sent them a bill for his costs, regretfully noting that all shares were ruined and beyond hope of
redress.39 Unfortunately we do not know the terms and conditions of Raket’s employment,
and more specifically his remuneration and whether his duties included making a market by
supplying spurious share prices to newspapers. He probably did so, for the Leidse Courant
printed Zwolle prices from 25 September, though no shares were issued before the 7th of
October.40
39
Formsma, ‘Windhandel’ 117, 118; the Hasselt magistrate did the same, ibidem 116. RA Zwolle TG 700 Vol. 2
inv.no. 11634, letter from Jacob Raket to the council, 9 November 1720. We are indebted to Heleen Kole for
ferreting out the Zwolle information for us.
40
Leidse Courant 9 October 1720.
11
Not surprisingly these September and October companies attracted most scorn from
the contemporary press. The monthly magazine Europische Mercurius considered the
September crop to be singular in extravagant bragging, and the paper lampooned the Utrecht
company for promising miracles including the removal of whole mountains, that is to say the
ridge in the landscape between the city and the Zuiderzee.41 The commentator AZ joked that
Utrecht’s university would probably teach the company’s directors how to convey their goods
through the air.42 What would Weesp do with 10 million guilders, AZ wondered aloud, raise
still more pigs, or buy up all available juniper berries to boost the city’s gin production?43
Given the deteriorating trading climate and the poorly considered objectives, it comes as no
surprise that no more than three from the 25 September and October companies survived the
subscription stage: Zwolle, Utrecht, and The Hague.
Only a few of the companies constituted between June and October 1720 generated
regular share trading. We have found price quotes for a total of 22 companies in Amsterdam
and eleven in Rotterdam between August and December 1720, with prices thickest between
25 September and 25 November (Tables 1 and 2). These data repay further investigation.
Some of these prices look suspiciously like the spurious quotes mentioned earlier. The Leidse
Courant, for instance, reported Amsterdam prices for the Utrecht company declining from a
peak of 151 on 25 September to 123 on 9 October. However, for most of that time there was
little to more to sell than scrips attesting that X, Y or Z had subscribed to the company.44
Since the company was reportedly oversubscribed some punters may have been interested to
buy them, but they did not as yet represent any real value since the first instalment of five per
cent was formally due only on October 1st. By then the initial enthusiasm had truly
evaporated, forcing the board to extend the term for the first instalment to October 15 th.45 And
yet the Leiden newspaper prices remained amazingly firm. We may thus conclude that the
Utrecht prices reported in Leiden were probably fabricated quotes supplied to the press to
drum up support, presumably planted by the likes of Thomas Lombe and Robert de Vlieger,
41
Europische Mercurius September 1720, 188-207.
Groote Tafereel, section Letters AZ to NN, 5.
43
Groote Tafereel, section Letters AZ to NN, 4.
44
This issuing of subscription scrips also happened in Hamburg C. Amsinck, ‘Die ersten hamburgischen
Assecuranz-Compagnien und der Acienhandel im Jahre 1720’, in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für hamburgische
Geschichte 9(1894) 465-494, ibidem 472-473.
45
Groeneveld, Crisis 1720 160; Groote Tafereel companies section 10; Leidse Courant, 30 September 1720; J.J.
van Noorle Jansen, ‘De Provinciale Utrechtsche Geoctroyeerde Compagnie’, in: Stedelijk Gmnasium Utrecht,
Programma voor den cursus 1903-1904 (Bosch & Zoon: Utrecht 1904) 18-20; Slechte, ‘Firma List en Bedrog’
196-197.
42
12
two tricksters who wheedled 1,000 shares out of the Utrecht company with an offer to boost
its prospects in a number of highly improbable ways, including a share price of 300.46
Such vain beating up of froth appears to have been fairly common, presumably
because promoters like De Vlieger and Lombe, Britto, Jan Warner Meinertshagen, George
Roeters, Raket, and presumably Van Asperen as well, sold similar schemes to magistrates.
The Amsterdam prices for the Middelburg trade company published in the Leiden newspaper
from 30 September presumably served to generate enthusiasm for paying the first instalment,
due since the 1st of that month and coming in only slowly.47 The Medemblik company was
quoted in the Leiden paper between 25 September and 14 October at around 100 per cent, but
in the same paper the board had already advertised rather hopeful news about its prospects on
the 16th of September, clearly with a view to stimulate the payments due between 18 and 30
September, i.e. before any shares were issued.48 The newspaper also reported Amsterdam
prices for the companies in Naarden, Weesp, and Muiden before these had completed
subscriptions or issued any shares. The Muiden company, for which the Leiden paper printed
prices of around 100 per cent between 25 September and 14 October, advertised in the paper
on the 16th of that month and again on the 18th calling on subscribers to pay their instalment,
due on the 1 st of November, at the well-known Amsterdam stockbrokers’ café De
Kersseboom. The total lack of interest forced the board to cancel this session ‘because of
certain coincidences’ on the 23rd of October.49 The AZ to NN letters, apparently written by a
close observer of the Amsterdam securities trade, confirm that Medemblik, Naarden, Weesp,
and Muiden did not trade there.50 The list of spurious prices could be extended, but the
message will be clear: the loose structure of the securities trade enabled market makers to
plant data in the press to support the their schemes, regardless of the existence of any shares
or trade in them, so we must take the prices reported as indications and not as actual market
data. Such support typically lasted for three to four weeks, ending in the second or third week
of October.
(Figure 2 about here)
46
Van Noorle Jansen, ‘Provinciale Utrechtsche Compagnie’ 17-18. See Slechte, Noodlottig jaar 52, 53, 63, 64,
78-80, 81, 82, 87, 90, 99, 112, 120, 121, 126, 127, 140, 143, on the wide ranging activities of Lombe and De
Vlieger during the summer of 1720.
47
C. Reinders Folmer-Van Prooijen, Van goederenhandel naar slavenhandel, de Middelburgse Commercie
Compagnie (Middelburg 2000) 20.
48
Leidse Courant 16 September 1720; Groote Tafereel, companies section 4.
49
Leidse Courant 16th, 18th 23rd October 1720.
50
Groote Tafereel, section Letters AZ to NN, 9-10.
13
Few investors appear to have been duped by these machinations, however. At first sight the
company promotion boom would seem to have generated a widespread speculative fever,
attracting promoters and capital from Britain, inspiring investors from all walks of life rushing
to subscribe, travelling to the cities concerned in person or, more typically, having someone
else act for them.51 Yet most companies hovered tenuously above par, so the initial
enthusiasm was a matter of seasoned punters trying to grab a market which then failed to
materialize because investors at large refused to buy into the propositions held out to them.
Only the Rotterdam, Gouda, Middelburg insurance, and Delft companies attracted sufficient
interest to keep their Amsterdam prices substantially above par for six to eight weeks. In
Rotterdam the company from nearby Schiedam generated trade for more than two months but
its price only hovered between 105 and 115.52
4. The scope for insurance
The Middelburg insurance, Rotterdam, Delft, Gouda, and Schiedam companies owed their
relative success to the perceived scope for insurance business in these cities, as is highlighted
by the large discrepancy between the expectations of investors in the two Middelburg
projects. Amsterdam data show the insurance company trading firmly above the commercial
company, the gap increasing from 20 to 31 points as the former held its ground and the latter
dropped in value. Clearly investors did not believe that trade, shipping and manufacturing
would reap benefits from the economies of scale attainable with a large capital whereas,
inspired by the sector’s consolidation in London since the 1690s, they liked the prospects of
insurance organized in large corporations.53
For a long time marine insurance in the Dutch Republic had been run by a somewhat
loose crowd of brokers and underwriters but the market recently showed a tendency towards
consolidation. In February 1719 and again in March 1720 Amsterdam underwriters attempted
to establish standard conditions by concluding mutual exclusive agreements.54 During May,
the incorporation of the Royal Exchange Insurance and London Insurance companies in
Britain, and the likely launch of another insurance company in Hamburg, provided further
51
Slechte, Noodlottig jaar 87-97, 111-113.
Leidse Courant 2 October 1720; Groote Tafereel section Letters AZ to NN, 10 gives the Rotterdam company
touching 187 and Delft 170 on that date. The latter price appears improbable given the other prices we have.
53
On the British companies: R. Harris, Industrializing English law, entrepreneurship and business organization,
1720-1844 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2000) 66, 80.
54
Copies in EHBA BC 255/1, fol 44-45.
52
14
impetus for change. 55 On 10 June a pamphlet appeared, anonymous but written by the broker
and company promoter Josias van Asperen, proposing the formation of a marine insurance
company. 56 Referring explicitly to the British example, the document drew no more than the
outline for a company, that is to say, its capital of twelve million guilders and the subscription
procedure.57 This was followed by a proper prospectus widening the company’s purpose to all
forms of insurance and laying down more detailed requirements for subscribers and the
corporate governance arrangements. In early July Van Asperen, having secured the support of
leading firms such as George Clifford & Co. and Andries Pels heading an impressive total of
264 signatories, issued a petition to the Amsterdam magistrate asking permission to form a
joint-stock insurance company.58 Such companies already existed in London, in Hamburg, in
Rotterdam and in Middelburg, the petitioners warned, so Amsterdam stood to lose business
unless it did the same.59 At the end of August Van Asperen repeated the warnings in another
pamphlet.60
However, the city fathers turned down the request, though probably not, as usually
asserted, from fear of speculation.61 Van Asperen’s scheme was perfectly viable and sensible.
The subscription requirement of ten per cent as a down payment, with further instalments
taking the total to one hundred per cent, should have acted as a barrier to excessive
speculation, as it did with the Rotterdam and Middelburg insurance companies. Amsterdam’s
rejection of the project issued from a conflict of interests between the big merchants, who
wanted a company to drive down the cost of insurance, and the underwriters, who argued that
the pooling of funds was unnecessary to offer competitive rates, and that a monopoly would
be counterproductive.62 The underwriters’ arguments had persuaded the magistrates once
55
On Hamburg: Amsinck, ‘Die ersten’ 468.
EHBA Call No. BC 255-1 copy of the Groote Tafereel, fol. 40, a petition in support of the scheme referring to
Van Asperen as its author and signed by him. Cf. p. 57 for a handwritten note by Van Asperen dated 22 July
1720 asking special consideration for the subscriptions of two of his collaborators on the scheme, should the
company be launched. From the close similarity between the wording of the preambules of the Amsterdam,
Hamburg, and Rotterdam insurance schemes we are inclined to suppose that Van Asperen had a hand in all
three.
57
Groote Tafereel, companies section p. 14-15.
58
The EHBA Call No. BC 255-1 copy of the Groote Tafereel prints (fol. 39-43) the petition to the city council
supporting the insurance company scheme dated 10 July 1720 together with the signatories to the petition,
missing both from the normal copies of the Groote Tafereel and from the Verzameling tot waarschouwing. The
EHBA copy also has (fol. 37) the petition in support of the The Hague insurance project, dated 10 July as well.
On 20 August the main proponent of the Amsterdam scheme, Josias van Asperen, issued a last petition in
support of his scheme: Groote Tafereel projects section, p. 18-19.
59
EHBA Call No. BC 255-1, p. 39.
60
Verzameling I, 99-105.
61
Groeneveld, Economische crisis 41-42.
62
Groeneveld, Economische crisis 40-41; EHBA Call No. BC 255-1 copy, pamphlet ‘De redenen, waarom het
ongeraden is, zodanige compagnien van veele millioenen guldens binnen deeze stadt Amsterdam te laten
opregten’.
56
15
before, in 1628, to turn down proposals for insurance companies, and a similar proposal had
foundered in Rotterdam seven years later.63 In 1720 the city fathers stood by them once again,
even before the merchants’ petition. When in June 1720 the Amsterdam WIC chamber
sounded the magistrate about its plans to start a general insurance department, the mayors
replied that the city did not need an insurance company.64 Subsequent developments bore him
out, as we shall see.
The fashion for insurance companies found ready takers elsewhere, however. As the
Republic’s second most important port, Rotterdam of course offered evident opportunities.
Presumably businessmen saw a chance to bolster the local insurance market which may have
been too small for demand and dependent on Amsterdam, as the local bill market was.65
Launched in June 1720, the Maatschappij van Assurantie, Disconto en Belening, later known
as the Maatschappij Stad Rotterdam, was the last and lone survivor from that tumultuous year
into modern times until its take-over by Fortis a few years ago. Trading in its shares probably
began immediately following the assignment of shares to subscribers on June 25, the price
apparently reaching 186 per cent the following day, though the board opened the transfer
ledgers only on July 16.66 Despite a skewed subscription process favouring locals, the
company attracted numerous shareholders from elsewhere. Even so Rotterdammers did most
of the share trading, for sales to or by outsiders are very rare in the transport ledgers during
July-October 1720. Slechte’s detailed analysis shows the city’s elite to have been active
traders as well, but most of them took care to retain a substantial position in the company. Of
the 79 officials bought shares, only 19 had sold out by August 1721, with another 19 keeping
10 shares or less. The others still owned blocks of shares, often substantial ones of 30 or
more.67
63
P.J. Blok, ‘Het plan tot oprichting eener compagnie van assurantie’, in: Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche
Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 4 (1900) 1-41; idem, ‘Koopmansadviezen aangaande het plan tot oprichting
eener compagnie van assurantie, 1629-1635’, in: Bijdragen en mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap
21 (1900) 1-160; F.C. Spooner, Risks at sea, Amsterdam insurance and maritime Europe, 1766-1780 (Cambridge
1983) 24.
64
NA 1.05.01.02 no. 375, WIC Chamber Amsterdam board minutes 25, 27 June 1720.
65
On 7 August 1720 the Rotterdam newspaper reported, probably at the company’s instigation, that the
Maatschappij Rotterdam had underwritten policies for numerous Amsterdam ships, suggesting that normally the
flow of premiums was the other way around. For similar reasons as Rotterdam, the Hamburg Senate turned
down all company schemes except the one for an insurance company: Groeneveld, Economische crisis 34. The
Rotterdam bill market dependent on Amsterdam according to P. Dehing and M. ‘t Hart, ‘Linking the fortunes,
currency and banking, 1550-1800’, in: M. ‘t Hart, J. Jonker and J.L. van Zanden, eds., A financial history of the
Netherlands (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1997) 37-63, ibidem 49.
66
G. van Rijn, ‘De Oude Hoofdpoort’, geschiedenis der Maatschappij van Assurantie, Disconteering en
Beleening dezer stad (Rotterdam 1899) 17; Slechte, ‘Noodlottig jaar’ 98; GAR archive no. 199, inv.no. 19,
transport ledger 16-24 July 1720.
67
Slechte, ‘Aandeel’ 251-252.
16
Trading was hottest during July. The company’s ledgers show that, in a little over two
weeks, shares with a nominal value of 7.5 million guilders on a total of twelve million
guilders changed hands (Figure 3). The books were then closed until 16 August, no doubt so
the clerks could catch up with other work. Though the remainder of August did see some very
busy days with large transfers, the total remained considerably lower than in July.
[Figure 3 about here]
The company’s share price remained high throughout August, enabling the board to launch a
second issue at an unknown price on 21 August. Ten days later the shares reached the
previous peak of 190, raising expectations of 200 or more; on 2 September the board sold
shares from its portfolio to three directors at 192 and 193 per cent.68 From 7 September prices
dropped, however, and at the same time instalments on share subscriptions began to slow
down. By the 25th the board had to warn some seasoned punters that they risked forfeiting
their shares unless they paid up that same afternoon.69 At around that time a petition
circulated requesting the Rotterdamse Maatschappij to open a special loan facility so
shareholders could lombard their shares, a sure sign of price falls causing margin calls and
squeezing liquidity.70 During the first two weeks of October prices dropped from 185 to
144.5, forcing a rush of settlements of futures and options deals which pushed share transfers
up again, but by then the game was well and truly over.
The sudden rush of local insurance companies inspired efforts at consolidation into a
national company on the lines of the VOC and WIC. In early July a group of 35 Amsterdam
merchants, most of whom had also petitioned the city magistrate on the same date, lent public
support to a proposed Assurantie Compagnie der Verenigde Nederlanden with a projected
capital of 75 million guilders.71 This and a number of subsequent proposals for national
concerns had an interesting twist and some unintended consequences. As for the interesting
twist, projects like the Assurantie Compagnie needed a charter from the Estates General. To
smooth acceptance, the promoters of national consolidation schemes provided sweeteners
68
G. van Rijn, ‘De aktiehandel in 1720 te Rotterdam en de Maatschappij van Assurantie, Disconteering en Beleening
dezer stad’, in: Rotterdamsch jaarboekje (1899) 1-75, ibidem 22; cf. Slechte, ‘Noodlottig jaar’ 110, putting the peak
at 200 per cent.
69
Van Rijn, ‘Aktiehandel’ 26.
70
Van Rijn, ‘Aktiehandel’ 27; the board created the facility on 3 October, GAR archive no. 199, inv.no. 1 board
minutes book A fol. 83-84.
71
The proposal in Verzameling 67-79 and in EHBA Call No. BC 255-1, followed on fol. 37 by the petition in
support of the The Hague insurance project, dated 10 July. This project was launched by Jan Warner
Meinertshagen, who later promoted the Utrecht company, and not one of Britto’s schemes.
17
ranging from large donations of money to debt-equity swaps. The first proposal, the
Assurantie Compagnie, offered to pay 24 million guilders in return for its charter and relieve
the Estates General’s finances by taking over a lottery loan then being sold.72 Subsequently
Gabriel de Souza Britto, a Portuguese Jewish broker in The Hague, launched a number of
grandiose consolidation schemes, nearly all of them with debt-equity swaps in some form or
other. Britto, who probably wrote a heavily plagiarized manual for double-entry bookkeeping
in Spanish, knew about London developments and the debt-equity swaps powering South Sea
Company share prices there.73
Three of Britto’s proposals envisaged national concerns with 100 million guilders’
capital. One would be a general company for insurance, trade, fishing and a range of other
businesses, the other two were to concentrate on insurance, lombard loans and lotteries. The
general company scheme proposed 75 per cent of subscriptions to be paid in various forms of
debt issued by the province of Holland.74 The two others offered a payment of ten million
guilders plus a benefit of twenty million through an undisclosed construction.75 In addition,
Britto tried to interest the city of Leiden for a trade company, and he launched separate
proposals for the consolidation of local companies respectively in Holland’s southern part, its
northern part, and in the shipping and fishing region west of Rotterdam into huge new
concerns with capitals ranging from 36 to 110 million guilders. These schemes all included
provisions for paying subscriptions with Holland debt.76
The Assurantie Compagnie and Britto’s schemes were all turned down by the
authorities because they were highly unrealistic, both economically and politically.
Companies with such immense amounts of capital could never have found profitable
employment. Nor was there a chance that the Estates General, in the case of the national
schemes, or the Estates of Holland in the other ones would grant a monopoly on a sector like
insurance, for any attempt to eliminate free enterprise would have run into fierce opposition
from underwriters, as it had done in Amsterdam. Nor is it clear quite what Britto meant to
achieve with the debt-equity swaps. The swaps practised in Paris and London aimed to raise
public credit by widening the secondary market for government securities. No such need
72
Verzameling I, 45-52.
Van der Heijden, Naamlooze vennootschap 149-151, Groeneveld, Economische crisis 27-35. On Britto and
bookkeeping E. Hernandez Esteve, ‘A Spanish Treatise of 1706 on Double-Entry Bookkeeping: “Norte
Mercantil y Crisol de Cuentas” by Gabriel de Souza Brito’, in: Accounting and Business Research (1985) 291296.
74
Verzameling I, 7-45.
75
Verzameling I, 80-82, 82-88.
76
Verzameling I, 89-98, 109-119; idem II, 32-42, 72-78.
73
18
existed in the Republic, which possessed a ready securities market where investors wanting to
raise cash towards other investments could either sell or lombard their securities.
The public credit of both Holland and the Union, the country’s two debtors, remained
remarkably robust. Data from bond transfers in the city of Gouda show that, between 1700
and 1720, Holland bonds rarely fell as low as 70 and generally traded in the 80-85 range
which, with interest payments on bonds taxed at 1.5 per cent, still yielded only a 3-3.5 per
cent return.77 By July 1720 Holland bonds sold comfortably above par at Amsterdam
securities auctions.78 The prices of bonds issued by other, less creditworthy debtors also
edged back to presentable levels. At the auctions, bonds issued by the Estates General rose
from 64.5 per cent in 1716 to 82 three years later.79 Consequently neither Holland nor the
Union needed new ways to raise their credit, because the secondary market, no doubt buoyed
up by the Republic’s abundance of capital, already did that for them. Provinces such as
Friesland could not contemplate swap schemes without support from Holland which, given
their financial beggar-thy-neighbour policy, they were unlikely to get.
As for the unintended consequences mentioned above, the proposals for consolidated,
national insurance concerns raised the stakes for local magistrates and businessmen across the
Republic. Following precedents established by the VOC, WIC, and the whaling syndicate
Noordsche Compagnie, such a move would subsume all local interests, turning them into
‘chambers’ or branches running the company’s business.80 Breaking into an established
concern was, if not impossible, rather difficult to achieve. The provinces of Friesland and
Groningen had struggled hard for their participation in the WIC, and the Noordsche
Compagnie also kept aspiring new members out for as long as politically possible.81
Consequently the nationwide consolidation schemes put an effective premium on the
formation of local insurance companies. It was of the utmost importance to file a claim as
soon as a national cake appeared in the making, all the more so when neighbouring cities
were seen to develop initiatives, so for that reason nearly all company proposals stated
insurance as a prominent business purpose.
77
Gouda Archives, Oud-Rechterlijk Archief, Inv. Nrs. 482-493.
Stadsarchief Amsterdam (SAA) archive no. 5068 Inv.No. 74, auction 3 July 1720.
79
SAA archive no. 5068 invno. 72 and 74, auctions 14 december 1716, 11 October 1719.
80
F.S. Gaastra, De geschiedenis van de VOC (Walburg Pers: Zutphen 20097) 20; H.J. den Heijer De geschiedenis
van de WIC (Walburg Pers: Zutphen 1994) 28-31; S. Muller Fz, Geschiedenis der Noordsche Compagnie (PUG:
Utrecht 1874) 336-340, 341; S. van Brakel, De Hollandsche handelscompagnieën der zeventiende eeuw, hun
ontstaan, hunne inrichting (Nijhoff: The Hague 1908) 81-83.
81
P.J. van Winter, De Westindische Compagnie ter Kamer Stad en Lande (Nijhoff: The Hague 1978) 5-6.
78
19
5. Incorporating local worries
It was not just the need to keep up with national developments which drove city councils to
support company schemes. Communities around the country experienced economic decline,
the start of what Johan de Vries identified as the process of internal contraction of the
Republic, i.e. the concentration of business on Amsterdam to the detriment of cities like
Utrecht, Middelburg, Dordrecht, Nijmegen, Zwolle, Alkmaar, Hoorn, Enkhuizen, and
Medemblik.82 Magistrates clearly hoped that a local company would counter that centripetal
force. As the Middelburg mayor put it to his council in February 1720, trade stagnated
because so much business had moved to Holland during the War of the Spanish Succession; a
large company with 30 ships would regenerate the economy.83 His colleagues in nearby Veere
showed the same concern. When in November 1720 their company looked set to fail at the
first hurdle of collecting instalments, they advertised in the Leidse Courant offering free
citizenship and freedom of local excises for twelve years to anyone who would settle in the
city and help the company to prosper, so that the number of inhabitants would grow again.84
The many schemes issuing from small cities and the involvement of the city councils
were lampooned in often devastating terms by contemporary observers, not entirely unjust
given the often ludicrously large capitals married to completely unrealistic economic aims.
Subsequently historians have castigated officials for their venality in getting involved with
speculative enterprises.85 Such criticism appears a little unfair. Of course officials hoped to
profit from booming share prices. However, the prospectuses suggest that the city councils
were driven by more than a hope for personal gain alone. For all their blind ambition and
impracticality, the projects really aimed at harnessing the speculative climate for productive
purposes by mobilising capital to regenerate the local economy. Some schemes revived longnursed ambitions. Plans for the canal to be built by the Utrecht company harked back as far as
1640s.86 Zwolle similarly appears to have wanted to improve the city’s access to the
Zuiderzee for years, and to have shelved them for reasons of cost.87
82
Joh. de Vries, De economische achteruitgang van de Republiek in de achttiende eeuw (Stenfert Kroese: Leiden
19682) 40-44.
83
Quoted in Reinders Folmer-Van Prooijen, Van goederenhandel 17.
84
Leidse Courant 1 November 1720.
85
Europische Mercurius August 1720 149-154, September 1720 188-207; Groote Tafereel section Letters AZ to
NN 1-5, 9-10; Vissering, ‘Groote Tafereel’ 21-22.
86
Noorle Jansen, ‘Utrechtsche Compagnie’ 10-13.
87
Groote Tafereel section letters AZ to NN, 5.
20
Nearly all schemes carried the hallmarks of public-private partnerships in close
connections to the local authorities concerned. The ones that did not failed to obtain the
customary official approval, with the exception of the Harlingen company, which was
approved by the city council but rejected by the Friesland Estates.88 Official involvement
usually went beyond formal sanction to commitments at all levels: conception, launch, and
organization of the proposed companies. In several cases the initiative to launch a company
came from the authorities, as the preamble to prospectuses shows. Moreover, the interest of
some city councils predated the bubble summer by a considerable margin, as the Middelburg
example shows. Once the talks between city officials and merchants initiated in February
1720 had led to the formation of two companies during June and July, the council supervised
the payment of the instalments and the appointment of directors, supplying three of the
Commercie Compagnie’s nine directors.89 These two features, monitoring subscriptions and
payments and participating in the management through board appointments, were more or
less standard throughout the Republic, as was a clause in the articles of association making
companies financially accountable to the mayor. Some councils went a step further and
provided practical support like office premises free of charge or yards and sheds from which
to start operations. Zwolle, Hasselt and Steenwijk paid the start-up costs, which in Zwolle’s
case included advertisements in Holland newspapers and Raket’s bill. 90
The corporate governance structure of nearly all projects demonstrated that local elites
meant to retain a firm grip. The prospectuses of all projects were quite detailed on aspects
such as board appointments and shareholders’ rights. The governance clauses were a curious
blend of old and new. Traditional and really obsolete was the frequent appearance of
oligarchic clauses creating in effect two classes of shareholders, hoofdparticipanten or large
ones with full voting rights and small ones with restricted rights or none at all. As we will see
below, this split served a particular purpose. However, overall the corporate governance
marked a clear progress of company law in the Republic over earlier arrangements such as the
VOC and WIC, notably in laying down procedures for the presentation of annual accounts
and for the election of company directors, and in introducing new features such a two-tier
board and printed share certificates, the latter a great advance over the cumbersome transport
procedures common in the Dutch securities trade.91 The Hoorn project came with a printed
88
Tresoar Leeuwarden Inventory no. 5 piece no. 127, minutes Estates Friesland 4 October 1720, fol. 102r-103v.
Groote Tafereel, projects section 22-23.
90
Formsma, ‘Windhandel’ 117, 118; RA Zwolle TG 700 Vol. 2 inv.no. 11634, letter from Jacob Raket to the
council, 9 November 1720.
91
Cf. Van der Heijden, Naamlooze vennootschap 152-154.
89
21
standard form for share transfers.92 Britto launched one of his schemes with both a share
transfer form and an options contract, the latter with a useful clause binding signatories to
honour their agreement regardless of formal bans on options trading.93 Three schemes sought
to bolster their chances of success by promising advantages to Jewish subscribers such as the
freedom of the city or by appointing a prominent Jewish merchant to the board. One of them,
the Utrecht company, collected no less than 350,000 guilders from Jewish subscribers.94
Other, less realistic features to attract investors included rash promises by some companies of
a minimum annual return on capital paid up of three, four or even six per cent. And of course
rumours were spread to raise interest: shares in the Middelburg insurance company were said
to trade at 140 per cent shortly after its launch; the Maatschappij Stad Rotterdam was said to
be doing good business, notably for Amsterdam merchants; Utrecht would commission an
exchange building to house the trade generated by its company; Weesp advertised hopefully
that the instalments flowed in.95
As a rule the articles of association gave hoofdparticipanten or principal shareholders,
those with a particular number of shares, a say in the company and the normal shareholders
no more than a right to annual accounts. Together with a set maximum to the number of
shares any individual could own, such clauses enabled local elites to keep control over their
companies and to steer them safely through the speculative storm. In addition city councils
directed the subscription process so as to ensure that inhabitants came first and outsiders
second, sometimes to the extent of outsiders not getting any shares at all. In Delft outsiders
are said to have received no shares at the first issue, but given the apparently buoyant trade in
the company some Delftenaren must have sold.96 The subscription in Hoorn drew such a large
crowd that the night before, all inns were fully occupied. The next day locals quickly divided
the shares between themselves before outsiders had had a chance even to enter the building
where subscriptions were taken.97 After the Dordrecht city councillors had similarly carved up
their company between themselves, they had to placate the angry crowd facing them by
giving away some shares to people on whom they could rely, including the local vicars.98 The
92
To be found in EHBA BC 255/1 fol. 57.
Verzameling I, 82-88.
94
Van Noorle Jansen, ‘Utrechtsche Compagnie’ 15; Slechte, ‘Firma list en bedrog’ 189.
95
Groote Tafereel, projects section 23 (Middelburg), Rotterdamsche Courant 17 July, 7 August 1720
(Maatschappij Stad Rotterdam), Groote Tafereel section Brieven AZ to NN 23 (Utrecht); Leidse Courant 14
October 1720 (Weesp).
96
Rotterdamsche Courant 8 August 1720; cf. idem 29 July 1720 for a rumour that five Rotterdammers would be
elected as principal shareholders, which election according to the paper they were unlikely to accept as contrary
to their interests.
97
Europische Mercurius August 1720, 149-154.
98
Groote Tafereel section Brieven AZ to NN 4.
93
22
city council in The Hague followed a similar tactic, reserving a large number of shares for
themselves, their secretaries, other local dignitaries such as the vicars of various
denominations and officers of the civic militia, and for selected other beneficiaries. Once done
there were sufficient shares left for granting to the numerous investors from Amsterdam,
Rotterdam, Leiden, Delft, Gouda and Dordrecht who had applied.99 In addition to squandering
a large block on Lombe and De Vlieger, the Utrecht company showered nearly half of its
shares over the provincial governing elite.100 The Maatschappij Stad Rotterdam also reserved
large blocks of shares for the local elite and, as we have seen, it remained faithful to the
company. 101
The company schemes thus showed magistrates struggling to reconcile contradictory
objectives with each other, notably the wish to attract outside speculators and investors with
the desire to remain in control, and serious economic purposes with the need to impress with
ambition. In the end nothing could keep these Potemkin companies floating once Britto’s
national schemes had sunk and share prices had tumbled. Some companies tried to change
tack. The Zwolle company turned into a peculiar form of investment consortium.102 Utrecht
exchanged its huge ambitions for a very modest existence exploiting the city tolls and
provincial lotteries.103 In Gouda the board moved into life insurance, whether or not
successfully we do not know; the The Hague company attempted to float a tontine, apparently
unsuccessful.104 Others devised new facilities designed to please investors. Monnikendam
followed the example of Stad Rotterdam and started to offer lombard loans on collateral of
commodities or its own shares, interest free for the first two months.105 Since the company
disappeared without trace this somewhat desperate strategy seems to have failed both in
persuading subscribers to pay up, and in attracting customers. One company, in The Hague,
appears to have returned any remaining funds to shareholders.106 Launched on the 16th of
October, the Steenwijk scheme collected so few subscriptions that the city treasury had to
pick up a hefty bill for expenses incurred by the lawyer entrusted with organizing the
company. 107
99
H. Enno van Gelder, ‘De wijze Hagenaars en de windhandel’, in: Jaarboek Die Haghe (1942) 104-110, ibidem
106; cf. Groeneveld, Economische crisis 68-70, with on 198-209 an extract from the subscribers’ register.
100
Noorle Jansen, ‘Provinciale Utrechtse’ 16-18.
101
Slechte, ‘Aandeel’ 220, 232.
102
W.J. Formsma, ‘De windhandel van 1720 in Overijssel’, in: Verslagen en mededeelingen van de Vereeniging
Overijsselsch Regt en Geschiedenis 60 (1945) 110-123.
103
Noorle Jansen, ‘Provinciale Utrechtsche’ 20-26; Slechte, ‘Firma list en bedrog’ 204-214.
104
Leidse Courant 18 October 1720, Verzameling II, 156-167 (Gouda); ibidem 284-287 (The Hague).
105
Verzameling II 138-143.
106
Van Gelder, ‘Wijze Hagenaars’ 104, 108.
107
Formsma, ‘Windhandel’ 117-118.
23
6. Conclusion: The mirror of rationality
The Dutch bubble was a damp squib. Share prices rose, creating a climate of speculation
conducive to launching companies on an immense scale, but the concerted efforts of
promoters and dedicated speculators proved unable to inflate an asset price bubble of French
or British proportions. This was not, as Laspeyres believed, a sign of the Republic starting to
trail international events, for the French and British bubbles were caused by attempts to
mitigate teething troubles which the Republic had already outgrown. Moreover, Dutch
financiers and investors appear to have been quite adroit, riding the foreign bubbles and
managing the hot capital flows associated with them without much fall-out from the crashes,
while remaining largely inured to the grand schemes launched at home. Despite the noise
arising from the flawed organization of the securities trade, investors showed themselves
quite capable to sort the wheat from the economic chaff, i.e. the viable proposals from the
also-rans, so the private information networks epitomized by the AZ to NN pamphlets clearly
compensated the misinformation disseminated by newspapers. The absence of a Dutch bubble
must thus be interpreted, with De Vries and Van der Woude, as a sign of greater maturity and
sophistication.
That sophistication also showed in the density of the private information networks.
Investors around the country knew about companies elsewhere and they also knew ways to
subscribe, if they so desired; and magistrates all over the Republic had access to company
promoters and market makers to boost their ardent hopes of economic regeneration with
fashionable prospectuses and even newspaper price quotes. The wave of local companies did
not represent the gullibility and venality of local elites, but their anxiety about economic
decline and about the need to prepare for a national bandwagon. So the 1720 craze was
different in the Republic. It was not powered by masses of speculative investors, but by the
folly of local magistrates considering this to be the best way of pushing the interests of their
communities.
But if there was no bubble, nor a crash, how come we have the Groote Tafereel, that
compendium of texts and gorgeous cartoons detailing bubble and crash with such relish? To
our mind, we need to understand the book in the way Anne Goldgar analyzed the Tulip Craze
pamphlets in her recent book. The Tafereel’s vivid scenes are heavy satires at a substantial
24
distance from events in the Republic.108 The book embodies a carnival, the counterpart to the
supreme commercial reason depicted in the handbooks published by Jacques Le Moine de
l’Espine and later by Isaac le Long, joined at the end of the 1720s by Jacques Savary. Where
those books erred on the side of rationality in their praise for the Republic’s virtuous
capitalism, the Tafereel exaggerated its foibles, the follies of unfettered speculation. And, like
the Tulip Craze pamphlets, the material collected in the Tafereel found a keen audience
because the speculative craze and subsequent crisis did not have a deep impact and remained
a source of wonderment and fun. When really serious financial crises hit the Republic in 1763
and again in 1773 few people felt like laughing, and as a result we have nothing remotely like
the Tafereel from those years.
108
A. Goldgar, Tulipmania, Money, Honor, and Knowledge in the Dutch Golden Age (University of Chicago
Press: Chicago 2007).
25
Figure 1. Share prices of British and Dutch joint-stock companies traded in Amsterdam, JulyDecember 1720
1400
Dutch East India (VOC)
Dutch West India (WIC)
Bank of England
South Sea Company
East India Company
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
1-jul
15-jul
29-jul 12-aug 26-aug 9-sep 23-sep 7-okt
21-okt 4-nov 18-nov 2-dec 16-dec 30-dec
Sources: The data were collected from the Rotterdamse Courant (Gemeentearchief Rotterdam) and the Leidse
Courant (Regionaal Archief Leiden), and the private price current pictured in De Vries, Eeuw Effecten, 18. The
Gemeentearchief Rotterdam run of Rotterdamse Courant copies begins with the issue for 4 April 1718 followed
by 25 October 1719 and then 17 July 1720, but the Economisch Historische Bibliotheek Amsterdam (EHBA)
possesses (Call No. BC 255-1) a unique copy of the Groote Tafereel bound with various pamphlets not included
in other copies, amongst them the Rotterdamsche Courant for 3 and 10 July 1720. The Rotterdam newspaper
published the local prices of the day before, and the Amsterdam ones of two days previously; the Leiden paper
published Amsterdam and Rotterdam prices of the day before. All prices given in this paper are dated by the day
they were collected for publication.
26
Figure 2. Prices paid for shares of various local companies, July – December 1720
200
Rotterdam
Delft
Middelburg Ass
Middelburg Com
Utrecht
Schiedam
180
160
140
120
100
80
3-jul
17-jul
31-jul
14-aug
28-aug
11-sep
25-sep
9-okt
23-okt
6-nov
20-nov
4-dec
18-dec
Source: Tables 1 and 2; the prices for the Rotterdamse Maatschappij, Delft, and Schiedam are from Rotterdam;
the Middelburg companies and Utrecht are from Amsterdam.
27
Figure 3. The transfer of shares of the Rotterdamse Maatschappij recorded in the company
transfer ledgers, July-October 1720
1.400.000
1.200.000
1.000.000
800.000
600.000
400.000
200.000
29 oct
22 oct
8 oct
15 oct
1 oct
24-sep
17-sep
3-sep
10-sep
27-aug
20-aug
13-aug
30-jul
6-aug
23-jul
16-jul
0
Source Gemeentearchief Rotterdam archive no. 199 inventory no.’s 19-27; totals recorded on
the left-hand scale, monthly averages on the righ hand scale
28
Table 1. The promotion of local companies in the Dutch Republic, June-October 1720
Phase
Purpose
Cities
Launched
Avg. capital
I
Insurance
Rotterdam, Middelburg,
Amsterdam
Jun 10 – Jun 22
8,4 million
II
Insurance, trade
Delft, Schiedam, Gouda,
Middelburg, Leiden
Jul 11 – Jul 25
8,0 million
III
Insurance, trade,
shipping, maritime
industries, financial
services
Dordrecht, Vlaardingen,
The Hague, Hoorn, Purmerend,
Edam, Monnikendam, Medemblik,
Alkmaar, Enkhuizen
Aug 14 – Sep 4
14,4 million
IV
Insurance (national)
Amsterdam, The Hague (3x)
Jul 10 – Sep 12
96,3 million
V
Insurance, trade,
manufacturing,
lombarding, lotteries,
infrastructure, river tolls
Muiden, Arnhem, Utrecht, Naarden,
Weesp, Zwolle, Harlingen, Veere,
Maassluis, Hasselt, Kampen, Brielle,
Vlissingen, Steenwijk, Embden,
Woerden, Schoonhoven, Staveren
Sep 11 – Oct 25
11,1 million
Source: Groeneveld; Smith; projects in italics were turned down by local, provincial or central authorities.
29
Appendix A. Securities prices (per cent of par) in Amsterdam
A
B
C
D
E
F
28-aug
G
H
I
J
K
L
114
206
31-aug
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
103
108,5
102,25
102
25-sep
151
178
---
---
121
118,5
---
117,5
112,5
115
102,125
101,5
106
103
102
101,06
101,75
100
100,75
100,13
100,13
102,13
30-sep
142,5
186
127
107
117,5
119,5
111
128
115,5
114
103,5
101,5
106
103
101,75
100,75
100,75
100,13
100,13
100,13
100,13
102,5
128
7-okt
126
164
136
108
116
118
115
113
110,5
103
101,25
106
103
101,25
101
100,25
100,75
100,75
100,75
100,75
102,25
9-okt
123
163
136
108
115
118
113
127
114
109
102
100,75
104,5
102,5
100,6
100,5
100,33
100,13
100,13
100,13
100,13
101,75
12-okt
115
160
135
108
113,5
116
113
125
113
108
102,5
100,5
103,75
101,5
100,5
100,25
100
100
100
100
100
101,25
14-okt
115,5
155
134
107
114
117
112
126
112
107
101,9
100,25
103
101,38
100,25
99,63
100
100
100
100
100
100,88
16-okt
115
161
134
108
108,5
116
112,25
120
110
106,5
101,1
103
101,13
100,25
99,5
19-okt
115
145
110
110
111
122
112
108
100,6
101
100,2
99
21-okt
115
146
135
106
108,5
110
112
123
110,5
106
100,5
101
100,25
98,75
23-okt
114
142
135
107
108,5
109,5
112
124
110
106,25
100,4
26-okt
110,5
138
136
108
109
110
111
119
109,5
105
100
28-okt
106
135
130
104
110,5
112
110
127
109
103
100,5
30-okt
104
132
130
106
110
110
111
124
2-nov
104
123,5
137,5
103,5
105,5
107,5
105,5
116,5
107,5
102
6-nov
105,75
129,5
137
103
105,5
106,5
109
116
107,5
102
9-nov
106,5
127,5
136
103
104
104,5
104
117
103
101
13-nov
106,5
126
134
102
104
106,5
103,5
115
102,25
16-nov
104,5
121
133
102
102,5
106,5
102
115
18-nov
104,5
121
133
101,75
103,5
105,5
103
116
20-nov
104
120
134
101
103,5
106
103
114
23-nov
104
119
134
101,5
102,5
107
102
114
25-nov
103
118,5
132
101
102,25
105,5
102
114
27-nov
102,25
2-dec
101,75
100,5
101
100
102
The highest prices are marked in bold, the lowest prices are underlined. A=Utrecht; B=Maatschappij Rotterdam; C=Middelburgse Assurantiecompagnie; D=Middelburgse
Commerciecompagnie; E=Vlaardingen; F=Gouda; G=Dordrecht; H=Delft; I=Schiedam; J=Den Haag; K=Monnikendam; L=Purmerend; M=Hoorn; N=Veere; O=Zwolle;
P=Edam; Q=Alkmaar; R=Naarden; S=Weesp; T=Muiden; U=Medemblik; V=Enkhuizen; W=Berbice
30
55
Appendix B. Securities prices (per cent of par) in Rotterdam
3-jul
10-jul
18-jul
21-jul
23-jul
28-jul
30-jul
1-aug
3-aug
5-aug
11-aug
21-aug
24-aug
26-aug
28-aug
31-aug
2-sep
4-sep
7-sep
9-sep
11-sep
14-sep
16-sep
18-sep
21-sep
23-sep
25-sep
28-sep
30-sep
2-okt
5-okt
7-okt
9-okt
12-okt
14-okt
16-okt
19-okt
21-okt
23-okt
26-okt
28-okt
30-okt
2-nov
6-nov
9-nov
13-nov
18-nov
20-nov
23-nov
27-nov
30-nov
2-dec
4-dec
9-dec
11-dec
14-dec
16-dec
18-dec
23-dec
28-dec
B F
H
157,5
142,5
140
151
147
152
153
154
190
180,5
182,5
176,5
114
116
177,5
110
114,5
178
110
114
178,5
112,5
114
190
114
118
190,5 117,25
122
190,5
117
125,5
186,5
117,5
125,5
188
118
125,5
185,5
118,5
125
184,5
120
126,5
120,5
184,5
130
130,5
180 120,25
120,5
178
128
176,5 119,75
126,5
179,5 119,75
126,5
185 118,75
126,5
185
119,5
127
172
118,5
128,5
166
119
126,5
163,5 119,75
127,5
163 119,75
125
144,5
116,5
122
157,5 117,75 121,25
145,5 115,25 122,25
142
110,5
123
141,5 109,75 125,25
139,5 111,75 126,75
135 111,25
124
131,5
111
122
130
110
120
129,5
109 115,25
128
109
117
125,5
104
114
122,5 108,25
113,5
122,5
108
115
121,5
108
114
117,5
105,5
109,5
118,5
104,5
109,5
115,5
103,5
111,5
115,5
104,5
111
115,5
104
110,5
115,5
104,5
109,5
114,5
103,5
108,5
115
103,5
107,5
113,5
103
107,5
113,5
103
107,5
114,5
102
107,5
113,5
103,5
109,5
I
104
105,5
106
106
108
110,5
110,75
111
111
112,5
110,5
111,5
112,25
114
114,75
116
117
116,75
112,5
114,75
113,25
111,5
111
111
111
111
111,5
110
110,5
110
104,5
104
107
E
K
115
120
117,25
117
116,5
114
115
114
114
112,5
110
109
108
107,5
107,5
106
105,5
104
102,5
103
102,5
103,5
P
X
A
Y
J
G
108
107
106,5
105,5
105
104,5
105 (***)
105
100,75
102,5
101,9
100,25
108,5
109
108,5
108,5
106,5
107
104,5
104,5
104
103,5
103,5
103,5
102,5
114
102
104,5
The highest prices are marked in bold, the lowest prices are underlined. (***) no fixed price; A=Utrecht;
B=Maatschappij Rotterdam; E=Vlaardingen; F=Gouda; G=Dordrecht; H=Delft; I=Schiedam; J=Den Haag;
K=Monnikendam; P=Edam; X=Maassluis; Y=Brielle
31