ABSTRACT
Early modern merchants in general, and those engaged in maritime trade in particular, knew of the importance of commercial intelligence. They were cognizant that knowledge of a commodity’s acceptance, presentation, and behavior in general, and price movements in particular, were imperative for their commercial success in trade in regional, intra-regional, and global markets. The practice of internally monitoring and reporting price behavior on realized sales of commodities was fundamental to their decision-making matrix in determining whether to continue to participate and compete commercially in any given commodity in any given geographical market. Subsequently, in certain areas of the globe, in particular in the Atlantic world, knowledge of commodity price behavior became available externally via printed publications of commodity price and exchange rate currents.2
