Amsterdam, stock exchange – Claes Jansz. Visscher, 1612

WORLD’S OLDEST STOCK EXCHANGE

“Byrsa Amsterodamensis”. Copper engraving by Claes Jansz Visscher, published in Lodovico Guicciardini’s Beschryvinghe van alle de Neder-landen anderssins ghenoemt Neder-Duytslandt, published by Willem Blaeu in 1612. Coloured by a later hand. Size: approx. 26 × 31 cm.

In the early 17th century, the Amsterdam Exchange was the most important commercial institution in the world. From the outset it was a highly international marketplace. Practically everything that could be traded was dealt here: VOC shares, futures contracts granting the right to purchase goods at a fixed date and price, insurance policies, and of course commodities themselves. Merchants could also arrange freight contracts, and gather the latest information relevant to trade.

Construction of the Exchange began in the spring of 1608, partly on the vaults of a sluice and partly on piles 50 to 60 feet long.

The initiative for the building came from Amsterdam’s city government, which aimed to concentrate all trading activity in a single location. This not only facilitated commerce but also allowed for regulation. The project was overseen by city architect Hendrick de Keyser. His design was modelled on earlier exchange buildings in Antwerp and London. By 1611, the Koopmansbeurs (“Merchants’ Exchange”) was completed.

The building consisted of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a colonnade. Because part of it was built on bridge arches, ships with lowered masts could pass underneath. This passageway was closed in 1622—first by a beam, then by heavy wooden doors, and finally walled up permanently in 1672. The closure was prompted by the discovery, in 1622, of a conspiracy by a stonemason from Namur, Balthasar Paul, who had plotted to set Amsterdam ablaze, including the Exchange itself. His plans failed, and he was executed on the Dam.

Perhaps already in 1611, but certainly after the enlargement of the building in 1668, securities trading had a fixed place on the open-air exchange floor.

Most transactions at the Exchange concerned goods, yet Hendrick de Keyser’s building was also the place where shares in the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and, from 1621, the West India Company (WIC) were traded. For this reason the Koopmansbeurs is regarded as the world’s oldest stock exchange.

The engraving is embellished with a Dutch poem by Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft.

For grain merchants, a separate Corn Exchange was erected in 1617 at the Oude Brug on the south side, across the water.

By 1835, the building had subsided so badly that it had become unusable, and between 1836 and 1838 it was demolished. It was replaced by Zocher’s Exchange, on the opposite side of the Dam.

Price: Euro 375,-