Seyler & Tillemann

Seyler & Tillemann was a Hamburg merchant bank in the mid 18th century, and was owned by Abel Seyler and Johann Martin Tillemann. It notably involved itself in the currency market and speculation with financial instruments during the Seven Years' War. It had ties to the brothers De Neufville in Amsterdam. Seyler & Tillemann went bankrupt as a result of the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763 with 3–4 million Mark Banco in debts, an enormous sum. Its downfall also contributed to the downfall of other banking houses e.g. in Scandinavia.

Seyler & Tillemann
IndustryFinancial services
FounderAbel Seyler and Johann Martin Tillemann
HeadquartersHamburg

In 1761 Seyler & Tillemann, acting as agents of their close business associate Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann, leased the mint factory in Rethwisch from the impoverished Frederick Charles, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön, a member of a cadet branch of the Danish royal family, to produce debased coins in the final years of the Seven Years' War.[1] Seyler and Tillemann also owned a large silver refinery in Hamburg.

The downfall of Seyler & Tillemann led to several years of litigation that reached the Imperial Cameral Tribunal in 1765. Much criticism was directed at Seyler and Tillemann's business ethics and extravagant lifestyle, and the company has been considered as one of the most speculative and immoral banks of the era. However, despite suffering "a sensational bankruptcy for an enormous sum [...] neither of them had lost his good humour or his taste for light living."[2] The bankruptcy resulted in extensive litigation, that reached the Imperial Cameral Tribunal in 1765; the court documents offer "an excellent perspective on 'deceitful schemes' and especially on the bill-jobbing" of the related companies Seyler & Tillemann and Müller & Seyler.[3] Abel Seyler later became famous as a theatre director.

Literature
  • Mary Lindemann, "The Anxious Merchant, the Bold Speculator, and the Malicious Bankrupt: Doing Business in Eighteenth-Century Hamburg," in Margaret C. Jacob and Catherine Secretan (eds.), The Self-Perception of Early Modern Capitalists, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
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References
  1. Schneider, Konrad (1983). "Zum Geldhandel in Hamburg während des Siebenjährigen Krieges". Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte. 69: 61–82.
  2. Karl Mantzius, A History of Theatrical Art in Ancient and Modern Times: The great actors of the eighteenth century, P. Smith, 1970, p. 112
  3. Lindemann 2009, p. 176
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