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This article originally
appeared in the Heart of the Country Chronicle. It is
written by Murray Hudson, currently a dealer in antiquarian maps
and books at the Old Post Office, Halls, Tennessee. He has
been collecting and studying maps for thirty eight years and is
always keen to pass on his knowledge and enthusiasm for the
subject.
A
Collector at Heart, I have hunted for everything from stamps,
coins, to matchbox covers and primitive art tapa cloths.
Yet nothing else has rewarded me in so many ways as map
collecting. The best way I can convey the intense pleasure
it gives me is to tell you how I got hooked.
One balmy day in
August, 1964, I sauntered up the ancient High Street in Oxford,
England, peeking in shop windows for small gifts to take the
folks back home. I stepped into Saunders on the High
Street, a rare book and print shop, expecting to buy views of
the English countryside. Instead, I encountered a
spectacular print with bold colours; flags and cannons
surrounding the title: "To the Nobility and Gentry that are
Related to the County of Kent...' Here in a 'Mapp' stood
seventeenth-century England (which I had been studying at
University of Oxford) in all its glory.
I went wild thumbing
through portfolios and drawers full of new-found treasures: a
1712 map of America by Herman Moll showing California as an
island; a map of ancient Egypt by Louis XIV's royal
geographer-sporting camels, coloured parasols and Neptune
bathing in the Nile; an 1810 English map of the Southwest US
depicting Apaches, Spanish missions and forts. In
all, I scooped up some forty maps earning my first dealer's
discount at twenty-one. My only regret is that I did not
buy every map I could lay my hands on. Investment never
entered my head during that first infatuation. Some years
later a dealer offered me the price of a round trip ticket to
England for a map that cost me two pounds.
The rare map of Kent
still graces my library. It represents all elements that
make old maps special. Firstly, it is a work of art, a
finely designed, drafted, engraved and hand-coloured print with
all the artistic nuances of its time. Secondly it captures an
historical moment, in this case the period of the Glorious
Revolution and the ascendancy of William and Mary. There
there are all the pointers to the contemporary social context
through all marking of 'Gentlemen's /houses', 'Ordinary Houses',
and 'Castles'. Parish churches, chapels and cathedrals
appear as tiny views painted red. Geography enthusiasts would
appreciate the detailing of early data and the map is a goldmine
for genealogists, local historians, and lovers of antiquity.
No other printed artifact epitomizes its time and place as well
as a map.
These special qualities of old maps hold true for almost any
age. a railroad hobbyists will find a wealth of
information in an early 1900 Rand McNally map that names every
whistle-stop along tracks now abandoned. Even though the
colour is printed and the purpose strictly utilitarian, these
books still have a style reminiscent of their era.
My advice to anyone
starting a map collection is to first choose a theme. An
art historian might decide to build a representative display of
aesthetic schools or periods from the simple wood block maps of
the 1500's through the elaborate rococo maps of
eighteenth-century France. But most potential collectors
will select a geographical area which interest them, usually
their home States or favorite places they have visited. Within
this regional framework history enthusiasts may want to
concentrate on maps that portray, for example, Georgia when it
stretched to the Mississippi River or the State of Franklin in
east Tennessee. Civil War collectors will want troop
movements and battle maps, especially the rare Confederate ones.
Coastal charts offer a different perspective for sailors or
beachcombers. some people with a large wall space may opt for a
spectacular US wall map like the rare one that shows two
proposed names for Colorado - Colona or Jefferson.
There are maps for
almost every taste, interest and purse. They can be
enjoyed solely for their beauty or for the information they
provide. I get as much pleasure looking at my 1690 'Mapp
of Kent' as I do my saito prints, western watercolurs or
abstract oil paintings. On closer inspection I discover a
windmill above Rye which I never noticed before. Glancing
over Ruscelli's "Anglia et Hibernia Nova' (Venice, 1561), I just
noticed a doorway into a mountain in Northern Ireland named "Pergatorio'.
Maps tell you much about the past and sometimes seem to forecast
the future. Map collecting is in its infancy in the US.
It is about where stamp collecting was when big names like
Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Farouk gave that hobby the first
pubicity shove. By the time it reaches maturity, most good
nineteenth-century US maps which are still fairly reasonable
will likely be out of the beginning collector's range. |
