Curious why the board never paid back the original principal at any point in time over the past 400 years?
If the current annual interest of 2.5% cited in the article is €13.61, that would make 1200 guilders €544.40.
Did they just forget to? Did they figure the bond would eventually disappear? Or did they at some point think it was really cool to have a piece of "living history" and want to keep the world record alive for oldest active bond? If so... when?
It's such a low amount it's barely a blip on the budget of the successor issuer and by the time it was rediscovered in modern times it was enough of a historical novelty it was more interesting to keep it than to cancel it. Most of these bonds go years without being collected on.
A similar one owned by Yale can be viewed online [0]. It was issued in 1648, and it seems to have a fairly continuous payment history since then. There are gaps of a few decades, but nothing too extreme.
Curious why the board never paid back the original principal at any point in time over the past 400 years?
If the current annual interest of 2.5% cited in the article is €13.61, that would make 1200 guilders €544.40.
Did they just forget to? Did they figure the bond would eventually disappear? Or did they at some point think it was really cool to have a piece of "living history" and want to keep the world record alive for oldest active bond? If so... when?