The fascination of historical securities
Four hundred years have passed since the foundation of the first modern joint stock company on 20 March 1602. On that day, the Dutch East India Company was called into being in the Netherlands. Today, the global economy would be unthinkable without the share as a financing instrument and economic motor.
The history of the share is at the same time also the history of everyday life. Shares reflect our cultural heritage and provide a thrilling documentation of the social conditions of each epoch since the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Some of the shares on display are
rarities from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
the "primal age" of the joint stock company. Some are adorned with exquisite artwork by leading
contemporary artists or stem from the estates of celebrated historical figures, sometimes bearing their
original signatures. Thanks to the signatures of these pioneering businessmen, inventors and statesmen,
whose foresight and temerity was the motor that drove the industrial and technological revolution, securities
bear eloquent witness to an epoch that has shaped our lives up to the present day.
Influences
from the spheres of economics, science, art and culture converge in share certificates. Many
of mankind's more ambitious projects were financed with the help of securities. The museum reveals how
securities are connected to our everyday lives and brings famous personalities of days gone by back
to life. Ultimately, it is man with his innovative power who has changed the face of the earth over the past
centuries – and the share has been the vehicle for this revolution.