1720 - With 78 plates of the first banking crash, showing the shocking effects of the “South Sea Bubble” in France, England and Holland, and placing John Law with his Mississippi company scheme.

AN EARLY ISSUE of this biting and vulgar satire on the Mississippi and South Sea Bubbles and an extraordinary visual record with 78 plates of the first banking crash, showing the shocking effects of the “South Sea Bubble” in France, England and Holland, and placing John Law (1671-1729), with his Mississippi company scheme, squarely at the center of the disastrous chain of events.

Of the two plates, each bearing four small engravings. (Cole 26 "Bombario" etc. and 29 "Verhens-beker" etc.) The engravings have been cut out and mounted on another (contemp) leaf; 5 plates (Cole 7, 9, 10, 13, 16) Tear on the middle fold in (partly blank) lower margin (2x repaired).

Cole 13 also with a repaired tear in the lower blank corner; title-page and a few plates yellowed/ trifle foxed. A fine copy in a nice contemp. binding. 

Cole 2-45, 47-70, 72, 73, 3 extra plates (consisting of mounted engraved portraits (of Quinquenpoix, Madame Law and Jacques III Pretendent D'Angleterre (Cole suppl. plates 2, 3 and 4)) within the engraved border belonging to the absent first plate "Eere-Titel, of Gordyn voor het Schouburg" ("Een schoone Lofkrans (...)")) and a small extra map "Louisiana by de Rivier Mississippi" (Cole suppl. 6).

Without Cole 46 (De inventeur der windnegotie, op zyn zegekar), 71 (Koning en Koningin van de Mississippi) and 74 (second part of Toverkaart)).

Biting satirical caricatures of The Great Mirror of Folly. "In neither of these [France and England] did there appear such a stout and extravagant piece as this Dutch volume" (Cole). 

This copy has 78 copper-engraved plates and maps, most double-page and a few folding on 73 pages. The set of 8 Bombario Auctionists, printed on separate paper, is mounted on two single pages, with 1-4 and 4-8.
The text provides the charters of important companies floated in various Dutch cities during the period of bubble fever, and the plates expose the principals of these companies to merciless ridicule. "The combination of such prosaic data with the numerous satirical engravings, with the reprint of comedies and satires, and with a description of bubble playing cards offers the student a unique historical document, the like of which was not thrown up by the speculative manias in either France or England" (Cole, The Great Mirror of Folly… An Economic-Bibliographical Study, p.1).

The Tafereel is perhaps an essential factor in the slow development of modern corporate organizations. "Against the joint-stock manner of business arrangements were thrown the fears engendered by this popular portrayal of the downfall of the 'windnegotie.' Possibly a mere book was an economic force" (Cole, p.20).
'The engravings, which illustrate the rise and fall of the great speculation, are full of humor; many are exceedingly ludicrous, and some very obscene… The number of plates in copies varies from 60 to 74" (Sabin).

Read more about Speculative bubbles - The First financial crisis.

Reference: Goldsmiths' 5879. Howes G442. Kress 3217. Sabin 28932.

Speculative bubbles - The First financial crisis

The Bubble.
Speculation in shares was known as 'the Bubble', and the trade was known as "Wind-Handel" and "Wind-Negotie" (both meaning Wind-Trade), because traders often didn't own the shares and tried to talk up the price. Dutch companies formed in the Bubble tended to be local affairs associated with the cities where they were founded. Stock offerings were often public in name only, with local officials and other insiders buying up most or all of the stock.
It couldn't last, of course. There was no real regulation; instead, there was government connivance.

The South Sea Co. was founded in 1711, nominally to trade in slaves in the Americas (the "South Sea" was the southern Atlantic), but was a means for the British government to convert its debt to stocks that could be traded on the market. By 1720, debt conversion was the Company's primary business.

The Mississippi Company. John Law (1671-1729), the son of an Edinburgh banker and successful financier, who established the "Banque Générale" in France in 1715, founded the Compagnie de l'Occident for the exploitation of the resources of French Louisiana after Antoine Crozat had surrendered his charter in 1717.
Law's reputation caused the stock to sell readily, and the organization soon enlarged the scope of its activities by absorbing other commercial companies, after which its name was changed to the 'Company of the Indies'. Enormous profits were anticipated... and the increasing demand for its stock led to wild speculation.
In the summer of 1719, Law began comparing Louisiana to Ophir (the legendary site of King Solomon's mines). The stock went up from 500 livres per share to a peak of 18,000 in the summer of 1720, then collapsed in September, settling at about 500 in 1721.

In January of 1720, the directors of the South Sea Company similarly hyped a public offering. From 128 pounds per share, South Sea stock peaked at almost 1000 by the summer. Demand was high, but to attract even more buyers, the Company's directors sold stock on credit. Hundreds of British companies also sprang up, most of them dodgy or bogus, to take advantage of the boom.

Dutch investors came late to the party in the spring and summer of 1720. They mostly ignored Mississippi shares but eagerly went after South Sea shares when they hit the market. During the boom, some 40 Dutch companies raised capital. Most were legitimate and associated with one city or another. Very few Dutch companies traded on the Exchange (Beurs), so people traded French, British, and Dutch "bubble" companies in coffee houses.
In the 1600s, Frederik Hendrik, the Stadhouder of the Netherlands, declared that trading in shares one didn't own ("blanco") was legally invalid, but all cities except Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Leiden ignored it. Even in Amsterdam, the trade flourished at Kalverstraat No. 29, the coffee house Quincampoix, named after the Paris street where John Law was headquartered (No. 65). The place figures in many of the book's satires and is recognizable in some of the engravings.