The Coat-of-Arms of the Hamburg Bourse

Bourse was the name given in Antwerp after 1460 to the regular meetings of merchants. The first bourse building was also erected there in 1531. Foundations of a similar type followed in Toulouse (1549), Rouen (1556) and Hamburg (1558). The coat-of-arms of the Antwerp Bourse consisted of a symbolic leather purse with strings. Later the Hamburg cloth merchants also claimed this coat-of-arms for themselves.
Since 1558 the Bourse in Hamburg has stood on a site donated by the City Council on the east bank of the Nicolaifleet near the Trostbrücke. The site was enclosed by wrought iron fences supposed by stone posts. The five associations of the Flanders, England and Scania Voyagers and of the shipmasters and brewers, the heads of the "Gemeiner Kaufmann" (Merchants' Association) and the Counting-houses of London, Bruges and Bergen all helped to decorate the site. One could see the coloured coats-of-arms supported by golden lions carved out of stone on the posts of the Bourse enclosure.

- The Coat-of-Arms of the Hamburg Bourse
- Old Bourse and Weigh-house, ca. 1650