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1723 SOUTH SEA COMPANY SHILLINGFrom the website offerings of CoinCraft in London is this nice 1723 George I South Sea Company Shilling. -Editor 
George I, Shilling, 1723 SSC Extremely Fine
The South Sea Company (SSC) was a British joint-stock company founded in 1711. It was created to reduce the cost of the national debt. The company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, and peaked in 1720 before suddenly collapsing, it ruined thousands of investors, and became known as the South Sea Bubble. Coinage of the South Sea Company was minted in Britain in 1723, after they discovered silver in Indonesia in 1722. Just over 300 years later, we're delighted to offer you this beautiful
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Coincidentally, yesterday's Wall Street Journal mentioned the South Sea bubble in an article about how today's bull stock market has a ways to go before entering traditional bubble territory. -Editor The great bubbles of the past were quite different, involving massive speculation driving up valuations (Japan's entire market traded at 50 times forward earnings at its 1989 peak). At the extreme, wild optimism turned into the purest form of speculation. Stocks became no more than gambling chips used in a pure Ponzi scheme of selling to a new buyer.
Stock promoters also raced to create new companies to satisfy the demand from buyers desperate to buy into the fashionable story. In all the big bubbles booming stock prices were accompanied by an IPO boom, perhaps taken to the extreme in the 1720 South Sea bubble. Gullible buyers were tempted by new companies raising cash for projects including ships full of water to carry live fish (the fish died); a flintlock machine gun that fired square bullets (too unreliable); and extracting saltpeter from waste collected from lavatories in England, according to historian Edward Chancellor's
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Wayne Homren, Editor The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org. To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: whomren@gmail.com To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum All Rights Reserved. NBS Home Page Contact the NBS webmaster 
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