Did investors in the world’s first IPO get rich? In this blog post, I’ll give the answer, based on VOC share price data that I collected from various archival sources during the research for my book. I’ve made my data available for download and reuse in a Google Sheets document. VOC share price data The price data are sketchy. Neither the exchange clerk nor the VOC itself recorded the prices. However, for the 17th century, I found 851 share price observations in financial papers and correspondences of merchants, notarial deeds, and, occasionally, newspapers. The following chart shows average monthly prices for shares in the Amsterdam branch of the VOC. (Shares…