Tulip mania or tulipomania refers to a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which time (March 1637) contract prices for bulbs of tulips reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed. This is often cited as one of the first speculative bubble (or economic bubble) Tulipmania: Boom and Bust. What was first the province of rare-flower enthusiasts became a get-rich-quick scheme of speculation for florists, novices from the middle and lower classes with no gardening expertise. Tulip bulbds were note a commodity traded in the highly regulated national exchange. Instead, each town had its own bulb market and florists traded in local taverns by their own rates that held no guarantee against defaulted contracts. Florists began paying for bulbs not in cash but in kind and also trading promissory notes for bulbs still in the ground, a risky practice that bet on the quality of a living thing that could not be readily inspected. This is often cited as the world's first futures market.