The 1637 Dutch collapse in prices for rare tulip bulbs and contracts is known as Tulip Mania.
Tulips became a fashionable luxury in the Dutch Republic, and particularly rare varieties attracted intense speculation. Traders sometimes exchanged contracts for bulbs that had not yet been harvested. In early 1637, prices for some bulbs fell rapidly, leaving buyers unable or unwilling to complete earlier agreements.
Modern historians qualify the popular version of the story. Tulip trading was real, but the idea that the entire Dutch economy was destroyed by tulip speculation is an exaggeration. The episode affected a relatively limited segment of society compared with later banking or stock-market crises. It remains important because it illustrates how scarcity, fashion, leverage, and expectations can produce extreme asset prices before confidence reverses.