Map-World

Map-World Map world has specialised in antique maps for 30 years and is a world leader in this area of antiqui Why is this? These maps rarely return to the market place.

Why do antique maps continue to be a top collectible investment? There are at least three reasons:

(a) The principal sources of antique maps - atlases or books of maps - are rising rapidly in value. Since 1946, atlases have increased in value by 250 per cent every 10 years, compounded. From the late fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, only small quantities of atlases were printed as they w

ere expensive to produce and buy. More than a few hundred copies of individual editions were rarely published. (b) University libraries and other institutions collect individual maps because they are important historical documents. And the budgets of these institutions are increasing as the economies in many countries in Eastern Europe and the Far East continue to grow. This means antique maps in general are continuously becoming scarcer and more valuable, in spite of tough economic conditions. (c) An investment in antique maps is also secure because maps are cultural icons that have never been out of fashion. Individually, each and every map since the 15th century to the present day represents society's impelling need for more accurate maps. And owning an antique map collection has another bonus; most collectors display them as framed objets d'art.

06/06/2017

Map-World is exhibiting (Stand 37) at The London Map Fair, 17th & 18th June 2017, Royal Geographic Society, Kensington,
London
Entrance Free

Visit Map-World at the Bloomsbury Book and Map FairSunday 13th April,Galleon Suite,Royal National Hotel,Bedford Way, Lon...
10/03/2014

Visit Map-World
at the Bloomsbury Book and Map Fair
Sunday 13th April,
Galleon Suite,
Royal National Hotel,
Bedford Way, London
WC1H 0DG.

Open 10 am - 4 pm

01/05/2013

Visit Map-World
at the Bloomsbury Book and Map Fair
Sunday 12th May,
Galleon Suite,
Royal National Hotel,
Bedford Way, London
WC1H 0DG.

Open 10 am - 4 pm

A successful map fair in Paris. A good time had by one and all
20/11/2012

A successful map fair in Paris. A good time had by one and all

14/11/2012

More info on the history of mapmaking:
Towards the end of 1482 the first printed atlas outside Italy was published in Ulm, Germany. It was based on Ptolemy’s ideas, just as the Florence, Italy atlas of earlier the same year, but the maps were not made by engraving copper sheets, as the Florence atlas was, but by cutting away wood blocks. The printed image was the raised part of the wood, not the cut away part. This method was just as painstaking as the Italian Intaglio method. But it suffered from additional problems, such as the impossibility of making fine lines, which included fine lettering. (The latter problem was solved in part by cutting holes in the wood and inserting typefaces). The publisher of the Ulm Atlas made up for its defects by colouring the maps by hand and by adding a fifth ‘modern’ map (Scandinavia). The project was successful for these reasons and was reprinted in 1486 with different colours, just as beautiful as those used in the first edition. However, the wood block method of printing was not used for mapmaking after the year 1600 - accuracy and fineness of detail was, and still is, of prime importance in mapmaking.

02/11/2012

How and when were the first maps made?
The printing press was invented around 1440. Printed words were images made from inked type-faces impressed on pieces of paper. However, the first maps in printed books were made by engraving lines and words into flat pieces of copper. The part that printed was not the metal face or surface, as in the case of type, but the cuts into the metal, after they were filled with ink. Printing what lies below the surface of a metal face is called Intaglio printing. Engraving maps was painstaking and highly skilled work and had to be done in the form of mirror images so that the printed image was the right way round. This was why early books of maps were extremely expensive to make and buy. This was perhaps just as well, as the soft copper plates became smooth after several hundred impressions were made from them. The first book of maps was produced in Bologna, Italy in 1477. The contents of the maps in this atlas were taken from Ptolemy of Alexandria’s work in the first century AD, which was passed on by hand copying before printing was invented. It was only in 1482 that some updates were made to Ptolemy’s ideas, in an atlas produced in Florence, Italy. Four of the 31 maps in this atlas (France, Spain, Italy and the Holy Land) were issued in two forms (Ptolemaic and ‘modern’) and a fifth map (Western Russia) was largely based on Ptolemy but included a few changes.

11th annual Paris Antique Map & Travel book fair. Saturday 10 November 2012 again in Hotel Ambassador, Paris.
01/11/2012

11th annual Paris Antique Map & Travel book fair. Saturday 10 November 2012 again in Hotel Ambassador, Paris.

Antique Map Price Guide available from Amazon, published by Map World.This unique reference work gives you all the infor...
01/11/2012

Antique Map Price Guide available from Amazon, published by Map World.
This unique reference work gives you all the information you need to collect antique maps.

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