Offered for sale during the week of the 13th Anniversary of the first Bitcoin transaction (January 12, 2009) when Hal Finney received ten Bitcoin from Satoshi Nakamoto, this NFT is an extraordinary opportunity to own a piece of history that exemplifies both the opportunity as well as the risk associated with Cryptocurrency.
In every financial bubble in history, there have been winners and there have been losers. When a bubble bursts, it is easy to look back and see the signs of trouble that should have been seen before. What isn’t so easy to see nor predict, is the extraordinary successes that emerge from the aftermath and transform our lives. Without a doubt, some of the largest companies on earth today emerged from the Dot-com bubble of 2000.
300 years ago, in one of the most consequential and perhaps largest financial bubbles of the past centuries, the South Sea bubble consumed Britain. It is estimated that as many as 190 new issues, or joint stock projects, were listed for sale for a wide range of businesses in 1720 and fortunes were lost. Seemingly no one was spared - including Isaac Newton. But even in the South Sea bubble, there were ideas and businesses that were destined to flourish - including those that look much like modern day insurance.
The NFT This NFT includes images of one of the world’s most important and valuable deck of cards – the 1720 South Sea Bubble Playing Cards. Framing a photographic masterpiece that captures each card in its own bubble is the entire deck of perfectly captured images - created by a world-renowned photographer using the finest set of Thomas Bowles’ most attractive South Sea Bubble playing cards known to exist.
The cards were printed from copper plates, with the red suit symbols being applied later by stencil. The court cards contain miniature versions of the standard full-length figures used on playing cards at the time. The usual duty stamp can be found on the Ace of Spades. Providing a unique contemporary record of the feverish activities of 1720s stock traders, the cards depict a series of domestic situations which, although undoubtedly exaggerated, represent the atmosphere of the South Sea Bubble - often described as England’s first great financial crash. Thomas Bowles’ Bubble Cards were issued at the height of the Bubble, when endless schemes were trying to persuade investors to part with their money.
Each card bears an image and verse satirizing a bubble company. In fact, the South Sea Company itself has a card, the Knight of Clubs, with the verse:
Come all ye Spendthrift Prodigals that hold – Free Land and want to turn the Same to Gold; – We’ll Buy your all, provided you’ll agree – To Drown your Purchase Money in the South Sea.
