Which Dutch speculative mania saw tulip-bulb prices collapse in 1637?

Tulip mania was the Dutch speculative episode in which tulip-bulb prices collapsed in 1637.

During the Dutch Golden Age, rare tulip varieties became fashionable luxury goods. Futures-like contracts and speculative trading helped some bulbs command exceptionally high quoted prices. In February 1637, buyers failed to appear at a Haarlem auction, and confidence weakened. Prices then fell sharply in what later became known as tulip mania.

Modern historians caution that popular accounts often exaggerate both the scale of the market and the damage to the Dutch economy. Anne Goldgar's research argued that the episode affected a relatively limited number of people and did not produce the nationwide economic ruin sometimes claimed. The event remains important because it illustrates how scarcity, fashion, credit, and expectations can inflate asset prices. Tulip mania is not a conventional modern stock-market crash: the objects traded were bulbs and contracts, not shares in publicly listed corporations. Its 1637 collapse is nevertheless one of the earliest famous financial bubbles.