The Map Collector - The Cartophile

Primer for the beginning collector of maps:

Old maps are among the most fascinating and worthwhile of objects. They are history, art, and science rolled into one. Many old maps are written in languages other than English, but they are completely satisfying without translation.

Just like maps made today, old maps may picture a small geographical area, such as a city, or the entire world, or any region, country, or continent in between. Most collectors choose a geographic area of interest - such as Wales, Cornwall, or New York City - often an area that holds a highly personal attraction for them.

Humans have been making maps of one sort or another since time immemorial. Maps available in the marketplace today date from the advent of paper making. This broad range of ages is great news for the beginning collector. It means that some old maps are very rare and precious, and some are much newer and less expensive but may be almost as attractive to the right collector.

Is it real? Finding the genuine article is not generally an issue. Buy from any reputable dealer and you will have an old map as represented. Note, though, the discussion of colours in maps, below.

With a little education, you can be the judge of whether a map is truly old. It helps, first, to understand the process by which maps were made beginning in the last third of the 15^th century. When Europeans began producing paper, the only method they knew was to bleach and boil rags to a starchy consistency which was laid in a mould to make paper. The only rags available were linen and wool; wool doesn’t make paper, so they used linen, which is a highly durable material. (Think of the Egyptian mummies, wrapped in linen.) The first paper-making machine was invented in 1800; before then, paper was all hand-crafted.

Even after the advent of the paper-making machine, maps were expensive because rags were always in short supply. Ragpickers, ‘Rag & Bone Men’, scoured the countryside for linen rags. Although the paper makers longed to add straw to the linen to lower the cost, that was not possible until around 1820.

The Earliest European printed maps were wood engravings. As the technology progressed, copper plates became the norm, especially in Italy. In Germany, where wood was plentiful and the engravers comfortable with the results of wood engraving, map makers were slower to move to copper. Like linen, copper for the plates was expensive. Even the most skilled copper engravers could engrave only one square inch in a day.

Between the paper and the engraving, then, maps were affordable only by the wealthy. Having paid a lot for their maps, the rich took good care of them. As a result, many old maps have survived to the present, including a great many that are modestly priced considering their age and beauty.

The painstaking and expensive process that would be required to make a counterfeit antiquarian map, complete with paper of the right age and copper engraving (which hasn’t become any easier) means that the risk of such fraud is small.

What about colour? Some old maps were printed and then originally hand-coloured, and many were not. A map with original colour often is worth more, because it’s prettier. Be aware, though, that many maps that were produced without colour have been “colourized” in recent years. A reputable dealer will tell you about this addition, but usually only if you ask.

Here’s one way to tell for yourself if map colour is original: If the colours on the map include green, turn the map over and check whether any of the green has gone through to the other side. Over the years, copper-based green watercolour wash will start to show through the paper. Therefore, if the map is green and there’s no green on the reverse, it’s probably not the original colour.

What should I buy? Concentrate on maps of areas or attractiveness that are of interest to you. That advice may seem obvious, but a beginning collector can be easily swayed. Simply ask the map dealer for maps in your area of interest. If you love Shropshire maps, for example, ask for them.

How much should I expect to pay? Prices vary widely. As in any other purchase, study the field by reading and viewing as many maps as possible before you buy. The last decade has seen an enormous rise in prices, as the rare and then the more common atlases have been in short supply.

The best aspect of the steady rise in prices is that maps have turned out to be a good investment for many collectors. There are no guarantees, though, and we don’t recommend that anyone buy antiquarian maps for any reason other than love.

How should I begin? Start small. Don’t plunge into expensive maps for your first purchases. You don’t need to. For example, a beginning collector can find a nice 19^th century English county map for £50 or £60. As time goes on you will hear and read about more important maps, such as the Imperial Academy’s first chart of explorer Vitus Bering’s second voyage, and the thrill of discovering it one day will be worth the wait.

How can I preserve my maps? Although you may not have thought of it, your maps are historic documents that can never be made again. They deserve archival attention.

If you have a map framed, be sure the framer understands the needs of old paper. Everything that touches the map must be acid-free; modern untreated paper is loaded with sulphuric acid, which literally eats old paper. Many framers offer acid-free handling, and the cost is generally little or no more.

The matting must be conservation or museum quality. A quick and easy test for this quality is to cut coloured matting and see if it shows white. If there is any colour at all on the cut, the matting is not acid-free. It’s best to double or triple-mat an old map, so that the map is certain not to touch the glass. If the map touches glass, eventually it will bond to the glass. Make sure the hinges, the little holders that keep the map from sliding in the frame, are also acid-free.

The glass should be plain or plexiglass. Non-glare glass will blur the details that make an old engraving enchanting.

Choose any frame you like. You will usually find that a plain, dark frame sets off these treasures best. Remove the backing every ten years or so and check for insects, which particularly favour the glue in the corners of a frame.

Select a place to hang your map as you would place a piano: on an inside wall, where the humidity isn’t extreme, and where the sun never shines on it directly.

If your map won’t be framed for a while (or ever), store it in a Mylar sandwich, or anywhere else that is dry, dark, and clean.

With this minimal care, your lovely map will serve you for a lifetime.

Collectorsite is grateful to Dee Longenbaugh of Observatory Books for permission to quote this article. http://www.observatorybooks.com

Letter Boxes

As far as I’m concerned it all started with a small article in a magazine listing some unusual clubs in Britain. “The Letterbox Study Group” intrigued me. The idea behind this turned out to be one of the cheapest fun collections I’ve met. All one needs is a camera!

Letterboxes as we know them have been in use since Queen Victoria’s time. Usually they have the Sovereign’s initials on them (e.g. VR entwined). So we expect to find mail boxes for Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II (Elizabeth I in Scotland). That makes six Monarchs (although boxes for Edward VIII are few and far between).

Now, there are generally three types of post box to be found – pillar boxes, wall boxes and so-called ‘lamp boxes’. The last are attached to lamp posts or telegraph poles.

So we have three sorts of box for six kings and queens. That gives 18 different types though within those types there is huge variety. Off you go with your camera. Should take you about two years.

In your research you will see that pillar boxes come in several shapes. The best looking one is the ‘Penfold’ and a representation of this is the symbol of the LBSG. A specimen is to be seen in the centre of Shrewsbury where it is registered as a ‘listed building’! On one set of Victorian pillar boxes the supplier forgot to put the Queen’s initials . These are known as ‘Anonymous’ boxes. An example is to be found outside a museum in Malvern.

Some people ‘collect’ pillar boxes with ‘Post Office Direction’ (POD) signs attached. These are oval sheets of tin fixed upright on the roof of the box with an arrow pointing to the nearest post office. Machynlleth has at least one example.

An off-shoot of the game is to request photographs of overseas post boxes from relatives or friends going abroad. These add a colourful addition to one’s collection. It is surprising how many countries have a post horn as the logo on their boxes.

Well, there it is. A fun collection costing but the price of a film (or a digital camera!) and petrol money. It can become as sophisticated as one wishes with the help of the Group, the cost of which to join is small and the magazine is a delight.

LSBG Membership Secretary membership@lbsg.org
Val Scott, 38 Leopold Avenue, Handsworth Wood, Birmingham, B20 1ES

April 2008 – Geoff Bates

Spitfire Windshield Jewellery

Want a different collection? Why not consider reverse-carved Lucite?
"Lucite" is the brand name of a polyacrylic discovered by DuPont in 1931. Lucite methyl methacrylate polymer, to give it its full name, was among the first plastics derived from petro-chemicals and was developed by DuPont chemists working on high pressure technology for ammonia production. Around the same time, an identical polyacrylic was developed by the Rohm & Haas Chemical Company and named "Plexiglas." In the UK, it is usually called "Perspex."

Strong, crystal clear and with exceptional resistance to discolouration with age, Lucite was in heavy demand during World War 2 for use in windshields, nose cones and gun turrets for bombers and fighter planes. Following the war, DuPont marketed it for a variety of decorative and functional uses such as lamps, hair brushes, handbags and jewellery. Allegedly, some items were created by home-coming servicemen for their sweethearts or to be sold for beer money.

My own collection comprises only brooches but there are plenty of alternatives such as earrings, bracelets, paperweights and compacts. I bought my first brooch about ten years ago in Carmarthen market. I was intrigued by the fairly crude carving into the back of the plastic which had then been painted to produce an astonishingly realistic image of a basket of flowers. This was enhanced and reflected by polished, bevelled edges.

Since then, I search at car boot sales, charity shops, antique fairs and, latterly, e-Bay. Average price is about £10 and the most frequent subject is roses. I now seek more unusual designs such as daisies, sunflowers, carnations, orchids, pansies, thistles, acquilegia and hollyhocks. I also watch out for small birds, swans, butterflies, ladies in crinolines, yachts and galleons. Brooches come in many shapes and rarer pieces might be edged in a silver or gold finish. Very occasionally I find the Lucite backed with coloured foil or a sliver of black or ‘ivory’ bakelite.

Check it out but don’t all rush at once or prices will rocket!

March 2008 Mala

The 'Olds' and collections

Despite my own advanced years, I am still blessed with the presence of both of my parents or ‘the olds’ as they are referred to by their numberless grandchildren. I write this bloggy bit while enjoying a weekend at their home which they retired to nearly 30 years ago and wherein I had not previously been aware of the encroachment of ‘collections’ over those years. Mater says Pater is a hoarder and perhaps he is but it is she who has the egg-cup collection and the dolls and the teapots and the postcards and the jugs and the dried flowers and even the table lighters!

As for Pa, he has the letter boxes (q.v.) and the books. Oh boy, the books. Especially the wild flower books, the Jack London books, the nature books, the Dickens books, the photograph albums and not forgetting kountless by Kipling. He doesn’t use bookcases, he uses bookwalls and an attic which occasionally groans worryingly.

Back to me. I’ve got a few bits. The current Mrs. Squirrel and I started enjoying antique and collectors’ fairs a long time ago, partly on the lookout for Art Deco jugs and vases which cousin John had started collecting and which were not attracting the silly prices they subsequently went to. He has a great collection but, now retired, he could not begin to recreate, financially, his marvellous shelves-full.

At those same fairs I spotted the occasional gramophone needle tin. Sometimes full, more often empty, these went for around 50p each. Already a fan of old radios, gramophones and juke boxes, the idea of starting a collection of items small enough for the family home, colourful, varied and CHEAP had an immediate attraction. As my collection clambered over the 100 barrier I realized that too few now caught my eye at fairs and those which did exist seemed more in the region of £5 - £7. This is fair enough but, even at these prices, many are pretty tatty and my interest waned.

I don’t know how many constitute a collection but it’s surely more than one. If not, I have a collection of veteran radio, I collected it on a visit to Hythe and it’s the same age as me, both being manufactured in 1947. Bloody cold winter I recall. I used to have a collection of a gramophone but I sold it with the intention of buying a better one but never did. The bloke I bought it from was in Liverpool and some sort of guru in Gramophone circles. His house WAS gramophones, even the stairs had one on each step. I still wonder whether he was married. Perhaps he was - briefly.

February 2008, Jake the Squirrel.

The joys of collecting

I know there are some who merely hoard things but they are few and far between. Most owners of CDs will glance fondly at a particular cover even if the disc is never played. The memory of the sounds, an affinity with the artiste(s), a delight in the artwork or a memory triggered by the item will all conspire to ensure its continuing presence as a gatherer of dust.

Almost anything can form a collection and a glance at the e-Bay collectables (U.S.A. collectibles) category shows HUNDREDS of possibilities even before you hit ‘Show all Collectables categories’. I say almost because there must be limits. I once knew a schoolboy who ‘collected’, mmmmm -- No, I've been advised not to say. Not nice.

But to happier things. In 1904 the New York Times published an article entitled ‘How the Collecting Bug Affects Its Victims’. I’d like to show it but it’s copyright, despite its age. Suffice to say that collecting is not a new phenomenon and I am minded to muse on the countless good and bad collections which have started, lived and died since that article was written.
As for me, I had (still have) a childhood stamp collection but I think the sheer vastness of the subject put me off. One glance at Stanley Gibbons’ Catalogue was enough to show me that even a focused subject or stamp group would leave me potentially unfulfilled.

My teens brought an interest in pre-decimal penny coins (yes, I am that old) as promulgated by my friend Elwyn. You see, some were rarer than others and were reputed to be of greater value so the collecting was not of increasingly beautiful specimens but of the 1912 penny with an ‘H’ next to the date which identified where it was minted or a 1918 KF or even rarer, the lovely 1926. Even in the sixties, Victorian pennies still circulated and I was always pleased to come across a 'Honolulu' penny. Remember them? Not much of a collection, not very display worthy but they are still in a tin in the attic.

Next came beermats. A school trip to the continent opened my eyes to this lovely subject as every eaterie or watering-hole could sell alcohol and mats were everywhere. LOTS came home. These were soon joined by many British items as Anthony Hughes and I took courage and entered pubs specifically to request a mat or two. We were sometimes given whole packs of mats, probably obsolete and we discovered an early Frisbee by dipping surplus mats in puddles to give them the weight to fly. Unfortunately, all of my mats were displayed on the plasterboard walls of my bedroom so that although they still exist, each has a drawing pin hole through the middle. Pity.

So these formative years spawned the bug. Press on dear reader.

February 2008, Jake the Squirrel.