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The oldest share
The VOC was the world’s first company whose shares were actively traded. It would therefore make sense that the world’s oldest share certificates had been issued by the VOC. It is not quite like that, however. The VOC charter of March 1602 stated that the company would issue registered shares. Subsequently, the introduction to the capital subscription ledger of August 1602 explained the procedure for transferring the ownership of a share. (Read more about these documents and the IPO of the Dutch East India Company in this blog post.) When two share traders had struck a deal, the buyer and the seller (or their authorized representatives) had to appear together…
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The VOC and Amsterdam’s first exchange building
This image shows the exchange building of Amsterdam in the early-modern era, known as the Hendrick de Keyser Exchange, after the building’s architect. It no longer exists. After two centuries of subsidence problems, the city decided to tear it down in the 19th century. It used to stand just south of Dam Square, where it was built over the watercourse of the Amstel River—small vessels could pass underneath. This had probably been too ambitious for the early 17th-century builders and caused the subsidence problems. From August 1611, when the exchange building opened, this was the place where most share transactions were negotiated. But it was not a stock exchange as…
