Absurdly Priced Things Throughout History

The Tulip mania gripped Holland in 1636 and 1637; it was an asset bubble never before seen. Tulips arrived in Europe in the 1550s. Their bright colors and solid structure made them the most desired flower on the continent.Tulip maniaThat bubble gripped Holland in 1636 and 1637. Tulips were introduced to Europe in the 1550s. Their bright colors and hearty build made them the most prized flower on the continent.

Early in 1636, the Dutch made a futures market for the tulip bulb, and prices soared. Within weeks, people bought and sold tulips across the country. Bulbs changed hands many times daily. By late 1636, single bulbs fetched huge sums.

One record shows a single tulip root traded for ""Two lasts of wheat, four lasts of rye, four fat oxen, eight fat swine, twelve fat sheep, two hogsheads of wine, four tons of beer, two tons of butter, one thousand lbs. of cheese, a complete bed, a suit of clothes, a silver drinking cup."

TThe Japanese yen rose 50% in the early '80s. This inflation sparked a recession in 1986. The government injected massive cash into Japan, fueling wild speculation. Japanese stocks and urban land values tripled from 1985 to 1989, rising 70 times from their 1955 level.

Britain's South Sea Company formed in 1711. It promised a monopoly on all trade with Spanish South American colonies. Investors sought shares, expecting the East India Company's success. Shares surged over eight-fold in the first half of 1720, hitting a price of£1,000, or£134,000 adjusted for inflation. Copycat companies began. England went crazy with IPOs.

While the world dealt with the 2008 financial crisis, another bubble burst: rhodium. This metal, used in catalytic converters and jewelry plating, traded for only $500 per ounce in late 2006. The price then exploded to $9,500 per ounce in summer 2008. Gold traded at $870 per ounce, making rhodium more than ten times more valuable.

Britain, having lost everything from the South Sea Bubble, faced the 1840s with "Railway Mania", a frantic market for building railroads. The first modern city-to-city railroad opened in 1830 and succeeded right away. The 1825 repeal of the Bubble Act, a rate cut, and new money from the Industrial Revolution made railways hot investments.

One strange bubble began with an octogenarian Thai general dying in 2006. Phantarak Rajadej, the longtime head of the Thai police, Phantarak Rajadej solved a tough murder case using an amulet showing the Thai god Jatukam Rammathep. Overnight, demand for the amulets exploded.

Thailand saw amulet craze. Wearers slung Jatukam amulets, blessed by monks and bearing names like "Super Rich to the Heavens," around their necks. These amulets, usually $1.20, became the main item in a massive bubble. Some sold for $75,000. The amulet market grew past $600 million. Then, Thais questioned if so many amulets could actually be blessed by monks; were most fake? They were not getting rich or gaining immortality.

In 1920, Florida became...thedestination for rich folks escaping east coast winters. Developers bought lighted billboards in Times Square declaring "it's June in Miami!". Property prices quintupled by 1925. Huge communities sprang up with casinos, golf courses, resorts, and race tracks.prices quintupled.By 1925, prices quintupled. Huge communities sprang up from nothing. These communities featured casinos, golf courses, resorts, and race tracks.

Large waterfront mansions sold for $4 million, or $53 million adjusted for inflation, during this time. The state went crazy; millionaires appeared overnight. However, the bubble could not hold its weight. The real estate market collapsed late in 1925. Early investors exited. Latecomers faced many unsold homes and went bankrupt. Prices dropped, and foreclosures exploded.

ThePoseidon bubble.The 1969 Poseidon bubble inflated when the Australian mining company Poseidon NL found a good nickel source in Western Australia. The Vietnam War increased nickel demand. The world's largest nickel company faced a long strike. Low supply and high demand created a bubble.

Poseidon's shares jumped from 80 cents in September 1969 to $280 in early 1970. At the same time, nickel prices soared. The metal traded at£7,000, or almost $17,000, for one ton by late 1969. The average new US house cost $15,500 in 1969, or less than one ton of nickel.

A complex set of factors causedproperty pricesin Romania, especially Bucharest, to explode. No new apartments were built from 1989 to 2005. A revived banking system and high foreign salaries for Romanian expats in the EU pushed prices up by as much as 1,000%. In Bucharest, this meant communist-style apartments from the '60s and '70s suddenly cost hundreds of thousands of pounds—the price of flats in middle-class London and Paris.

The primitive social media site, theGlobe.com, launched on April Fool's Day 1995. It immediately got over 40,000 visitors. The site went public three years later. A share price of $9 jumped to $97 and settled at $63.50 in one day. This was the biggest first-day percentage jump ever. The company's co-CEOs reached nine figures by the end of trading.

TheGlobe.com became a target for tech doubters. The site merged chat rooms, message boards, and online clubs. Co-CEOs were obnoxious tech bros. They favored self-serving pull quotes and pleather clothes. One CEO earned the nickname "the CEO in plastic pants".