Spring has sprung in the northern hemisphere, so, in many places, people should be finding tulips in bloom. Way back in 1637, a sailor partaking of breakfast in the counting house of a wealthy Dutch merchant saw what he thought was an onion lying of the counter & pocketed it to add zest to a fish dinner he expected to be having later in the day. It was not, however, an onion, and it didn’t take the merchant long to notice his valuable Semper Augustus tulip bulb had been heisted. Tulips had started to be a really big deal in 1636, and although the world craze was about to start diminishing, the sailor’s had unknowingly nicked something worth 3,000 florins, or about $382 (£280) which today would translate into over one million dollars (£770,000).
