Collecting Antique Maps

Announcing ANTIQUE MAP PRICE GUIDES Volumes 1-23. Author: Jeffrey Sharpe.

THIS UNIQUE REFERENCE            WORK GIVES YOU ALL THE INFORMATION YOU NEED TO COLLECT ANTIQUE MAPS. SEE ALL THE PRINTED MAPS OF ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD IN DATE ORDER, FROM WHEN PRINTING MAPS BEGAN IN 1472 TO 1850. SEE EACH MAP'S 2012 REPLACEMENT / INSURANCE VALUE,  ITS MAKER, TITLE, SIZE AND OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION.        INCLUDES MANY BEAUTIFUL COLOUR IMAGES, SOME FROM MAP WORLD'S COLLECTION. A CATALOGUE OF 25000 DIFFERENT* ANTIQUE MAPS IN 23 REGIONAL VOLUMES AVAILABLE INDIVIDUALLY.

Why you need Map World's Price Guides. Suppose you saw a map catalogued as a 1730 plan of ancient Jerusalem with a price tag of £500. If you had checked this map out in Map World's Guide no.14 (The Middle East) you would have discovered it was printed in 1629 and valued at £5000. This is a true story and happened recently in London.

Until now, a catalogue of all antique maps has not been available to collectors / investors.  It may come as a surprise, but comprehensive listings of antique maps of many regions / islands / cities / counties etc. have never been compiled, or have only been compiled for maps printed before the year 1700.

Historical records of auction and dealer catalogue prices over the past few decades have attempted to remedy this situation. But they do not tell collectors about the existence of many antique maps not sold by catalogue. The large majority of antique maps have been sold in antique map shops or directly to collectors. Nor are the catalogue prices up to date or reveal which maps have been bought by dealers for re-sale at a higher price.

This lack of information suited some collectors because it deterred competitors. However, a new breed of collector / investor has emerged, who relies on the best information available. Map World's Antique Map Price Guides offer collectors comprehensive listings of all* printed antique maps and nautical charts from 1472 to 1850. These have been compiled from source atlases and other data in the public domain.

The Price Guides also offer continually updated replacement / insurance values, based on a map's rarity, importance and other data, which belongs to Map World. However, any antique map’s replacement cost (other factors being equal) depends on its condition, as does the value of any other antique. This is why all Map World’s replacement prices have been standardized for maps in undamaged / unrestored condition, otherwise known as ‘fine’ condition.

Why are antique maps becoming more popular as a collectible investment? There are at least three reasons:

(a) Atlases, the principal sources of antique maps, are rising rapidly in value. Since 1946, atlases have increased in value by 250 per cent every 10 years, compounded. Why is this? From the late fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, only small quantities of atlases were printed as they were expensive to produce and buy. More than a few hundred copies of individual editions were rarely published;

(b) University libraries and other institutions collect indivual maps because they are important historical documents. These maps rarely return to the market place. And the budgets of these institutions are increasing as the economies in many countries in Eastern Europe and the Far East continue to grow;

(c) An investment in antique maps is secure financially because antique maps are cultural icons that have never been out of fashion. Collectively they represent an era of exploration and discovery. Individually, each and every map since the 15th century to the present day represents society's impelling need for more accurate maps.

And owning a map collection has another bonus; most collectors of antique maps display them as objets d'art.

You can order or find more information on any Price Guide by going to the region concerned (above). Amazon prints the Antique Map Price Guides on-demand, so Map World is able to update them continually. This is the only way in which current data in hard-copy books can always be available up-to-date. The Price Guides are now available from Amazon in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and US.

*Antique maps that have not been selected for this catalogue include celestial maps, diagrammatic route maps, antique maps of parts of counties or parts of cities, different editions of the same map by the same mapmaker, maps of proposed developments, globe gores, puzzle maps, Ptolemaic maps printed after the year 1570 and antique maps of such rarity that none are known to exist in private hands. Topographical views of cities are not included unless they give ‘birds eye’ information about a whole city.   

    Contains more than 1200 antique maps and nautical charts of all parts of Italy, Sardinia and Sicily.