Blogging About Antique Maps Turns Fun!

Who would have guessed it! The tweedy denizens of the antique maps and prints world are finally having fun in the blogosphere! Well, sort of the blogosphere, as you will see...

The Map Room Blog Leads With: "Arader Buys A Map"

On Sunday, November 20 our friends at the The Map Room Blog led with this headline: Map History Latest News: Arader Buys A Map. Now I love the Map Room Blog, and think they do an excellent job. So I knew this had to be a story worth following up...

The Arader Story Begins With News Sleuth Tony Campbell

It turns out that The Map Room Blog is linking to what appears to be a new page on the famous Map History/History of Cartography site. The new page is called Latest News. Here, Tony is providing text links (see what I mean about "sort of" having fun in the blogosphere? Tony -- don't just do unclickable text links -- set up a blog!) So what is all the fuss about Graham Arader?

Graham Arader Really Did Buy A Map

Well, I'm not really sure what all the fuss is about, actually. Yes, he did buy a map. Tony says that according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (Google Alerts, anyone?) Graham Arader III bought an antique map which was "made in 1784 by Col. George Woods, and was known as Penn's Charter of Pittsburgh. It's one of three hand-drawn maps made at the behest of Tench Francis, an agent for the William Penn family..."

Okay, so there you have it. Graham really did buy that map. Apparently he paid $55,000 for it. But if you've been following the auctions recently, that was small potatoes compared to what some other items have been fetching. And speaking of auctions...

No Major Antique Map Auctions This Week, But Stay Tuned

Coming in December, Old World Auctions will be holding its last sale of 2005. Bonhams has a Natural History sale in early December and a maps sale in mid-December. Christies is selling an important edition of Audubon's Birds of America on the 15th, as well as Books and Manuscripts. And on December 8, Swann Galleries is holding what promises to be the very important sale of 150 rare maps and atlases from the Mark Babinski Collection. Stay tuned for more detailed previews of the upcoming sales.