Step aside Pokémon, it's Tulip Mania Time! ft Sally Anne Fellows

About this episode

Comedian Sally Anne Fellows attempts to sell a priceless Semper Augustus bulb during the height of Tulip Mania.

Haarlem, the Dutch Republic, February 1637. Tulip Mania is at fever pitch, and comedian Sally Anne Fellows has been handed a single Semper Augustus bulb worth more than an Amsterdam townhouse. The job: sell it at auction for at least 5,000 guilders before sundown, pocket a fat cut, and get out before the most famous bubble in history finally pops. Sally's qualifications for surviving the floral gold rush: she's good at digging holes, brilliant at shouting her wares, and a self-confessed natural at choosing bright colours. Her actual plan is something else entirely. She decides the way to flog a priceless flower is to tell absolutely everyone she has it, swear them all to secrecy, and let the rumour do the selling. With the market wobbling and a day at most before the panic reaches Haarlem, the only question is whether a Pied-Piper sales pitch can outrun a crash that history already knows the ending to. Tulip Mania ran from 1634 to 1637, when the Dutch Republic had the highest per-capita income on Earth and a single flower bulb became a status symbol worth a fortune. The most prized varieties, the Admirals and the Lords, owed their flamed two-tone petals to a mosaic virus nobody…

People in this episode

Host: PastMaster

Guest: Sally Anne Fellows

Topics covered

• Tulip Mania
• speculative market bubble
• historical auction
• comedy
• flower trading

Keywords

• Tulip Mania
• Sally Anne Fellows
• auction
• flower bulb
• Dutch Republic

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Semper Augustus bulb

Books & works: Amsterdam townhouse

Places: Haarlem, Dutch Republic

More episodes of PastMaster: Reshaping History

• Founding a Welsh Heaven in South America, ft. Sunil Patel · May 28, 2026 · 1h 17m
• The Singing Grave Diggers of The Black Death, ft The McPherson Twins · May 13, 2026 · 1h 22m
• Crashing the Greatest Party in History: PastMaster 3rd Birthday Special · April 27, 2026 · 1h 25m
• A Vegetarian with Bad Knees vs. Vlad the Impaler, ft. Rohan Sharma · April 13, 2026 · 1h 2m
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Cricket: Qin Dynasty China ft. Caroline McEvoy · March 30, 2026 · 1h 1m
• How to conquer Greenland ft. Ashley Haden · March 16, 2026 · 1h 2m