Once upon a time in Holland (which is how to start a story that is so much like a fairy tale) a tulip bulb could buy a herd of cattle.
"Tulipmania" started slowly. First wealthy people began raising tulips, a new flower from Constantinople. As interest grew, rare varieties began bringing high prices. Then the middle class joined the scramble and by 1634 regular work was neglected in the frenzy over tulips. Some bulbs went for as much as 5,500 florins.
It is told that a sailor who had been given a fish dinner by his host noticed an "onion" on the counter. He liked onions, so he cut it up to add to his fish. Except it wasn't an onion; it was a tulip bulb worth 3,000 florins. By contrast, you could buy four fat oxen for 448 florins, or a bed for 100 florins.
Eventually this speculative bubble popped. Prices dipped, then plummeted. Many of those owning tulips when the market crashed were ruined.
