A Dutch bond, written on goatskin in 1648, promising a 5 per cent interest payment every year for ever. It was purchased by Yale University at an auction in 2003, and a debt of €136 was collected in 2015
by MaleficentParfait863
A Dutch bond, written on goatskin in 1648, promising a 5 per cent interest payment every year for ever. It was purchased by Yale University at an auction in 2003, and a debt of €136 was collected in 2015
by MaleficentParfait863
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[Source](https://www.ft.com/content/5631cc22-a04d-405c-9154-e307f938f8f3)
From article:
> It was a crisp September day in 2015 when Timothy Young arrived at Houten, an unremarkable Dutch commuter town, determined to collect an almost 400-year-old debt. He carried a case containing a fragile piece of goatskin covered in dense writing and numbers. It was a bond, issued in 1648 by a group of Dutch landowners, who managed the dikes on a stretch of the river Lek. They had borrowed 1,000 guilders from a local merchant and the bond explained that, in return for the loan, the merchant would receive a 5 per cent interest payment every year — for ever.
> Although the terms of this so-called “perpetual” bond have changed over centuries of wars, depressions, revolutions and new currencies, it is still a valid liability of Stichtse Rijnlanden, a Dutch utility, and is now owned by Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Young, a curator at Yale, was collecting €136 of interest from a delighted Dutch official, who had made a giant cheque to commemorate the payment.