TULIPMANIA 553
high prices.33 By the time they appeared on a general catalog, they had diffused sufficiently to become relatively common. Again, in 32 years prices declined to 3 percent, 0.25 percent, 0.35 percent, or 0.04 percent of their original values, repeating the pattern of decline of the bulbs from the tulipmania. Indeed, the valuable bulbs of 1707 even converged approximately to the same prices as the valuable bulbs of 1637. We now have a pattern in the evolution of' prices of newly devel- oped, fashionable tulip bulbs. The first bulbs, unique or in small supply, carry high prices. With time, the price declines rapidly either because of rapid reproduction of' the new variety or because of' the increasing introduction of new varieties. Anyone who acquired a rare bulb would have understood this standard pattern of anticipated capi- tal depreciation, at least by the eighteenth century. To apply this pattern to the postcollapse period, we treat as rare all eighteenth-century bulbs selling for at least 1(00 guilders (Premier Noble, Aigle Noir, Roi de Fleurs, and Superintendant)9. Prices for these bulbs declined at an average annual percentage rate of' 28.5 percent. From table 1, the three costly bulbs of' February 1637 (En- glish Admiral, Admirael van der Eyck, and General Rotgans) had an average annual price decline of' 32 percent from the peak of' the speculation through 1642. Using the eighteenth-century price depre- ciation rate as a benchmark also followed by expensive bulbs after the mania, we can infer that any price collapse for rare bulbs in February 1637 could not have exceeded 16 percent of peak prices. Thus the crash of February 1637 for rare bulbs was not of extraordinary mag- nitude and did not greatly affect the normal time-series pattern of rare bulb prices.
Eighteenth-Century Hyacinth Prices
As further evidence of this standard pattern in bulb prices, I now turn to the market for hyacinths. Krelage (1946) supplies prices of' hyacinths during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hyacinths replaced tulips at the start of the eighteenth century as the fashion-
33 None of the bulbs on the 1739 list carried a price greater than 8 guilders, while most prices were much lower. Rare and valuable bulbs would not appear on a standard dealer's list. Conversely, auctions would not likely bother with common, inexpensive bulbs. Since the 1637 rare bulbs had become common by 1707, it is not surprising that their names disappeared from auction lists. 34 For example, Roi de Fleurs would be counted as rare when its price was H 251 in 1707. By 1722, its price was H 10, so it would no longer be considered rare. The price declined between 1707 and 1722 by 96 percent, and the average annual decline was 21.5 percent. This 21.5 percent annual decline was averaged with similarly computed declines for other rare bulbs to produce an overall average.