Auctions and the Distribution of Silks in the Eighteenth-Century United Provinces

Voluntary auctionAuctions sales were widespread in the eighteenth-century United Provinces. This chapter investigates the role Dutch East India Company (VOC) auctionsAuctions and AmsterdamAmsterdam broker auctionsAuctions played in the distribution chains of silk products. Once or twice a year, the East India Company auctioned bales of Bengali and Chinese raw silkRaw silk, as well as all sorts of fabrics, clothes and accessories, such as Japanese dressing gowns, shawls and other popular trappings. The AmsterdamAmsterdam sworn brokers also frequently organized auctionsAuctions of silks in smaller lots on behalf of individual wholesalers. Analysis of those who participated at these auctionsAuctions reveals that the market for raw silksRaw silk and recently imported high-quality cloth was dominated by influential middlemen, such as sworn and illicit brokers and wholesalers who acted as commission agents for domestic and foreign merchants. At the lower end of the market, AmsterdamAmsterdam broker auctionsAuctions were used to dispose of second-choice and damaged commodities. Among the bidders for damaged goods and cheap accessories such as handkerchiefsHandkerchiefs, two groups stand outFemale shopkeepers: female shopkeepersShopkeepers and Ashkenazi merchants and clothes sellers. These retailers seem to have played a vital role in increasing the consumption of silk items among the non-elites.