Antique Maps & Prints: News, Auctions, Events

Old World Auctions Sale 114 Now Online

Old World Auctions quarterly sale is now online and open for bidding. The auction closes on Wednesday, March 1 at 10 pm Eastern time. This is always a good auction for antique map collectors, with wide selections and excellent condition reports by Curt and Marti Griggs. This time, according to their online catalog introduction, the sale features a good selection of Colonial Period maps; maps featuring the island of California; Western U.S. exploration, and much more. Atlases for auction include works by Hondius, de Fer, Dufour, Finley, Mitchell, Beers, Walling, and more. Highlights include a scarce world map by de Wit (lot 22, estimate $7-9,000); a double-hemisphere world map by Montanus (lot 24, estimate $5-8,000); an unusual map of the Americas by Sanson, labelled Atlantis, (lot 78, estimate $1,100-1,400); Bowen's scarce map of Georgia, circa 1748, (lot 168, $3-3,500); A. L. Bancroft's scarce pocket map of California and western states (lot 200, estimate $2,500-3,000), and the scarce State of Sequoyah (Oklahoma) issued in 1905 (lot 263, $7-900). Well worth a visit to the site, offering online absentee bidding and other bidding methods.

PBA Galleries Rare Books & Manuscripts Sale, Feb. 23

Not all items in this PBA Galleries auction are relevant to antique maps and prints, but there is more than enough to make their website worth a visit, including a 1780 world atlas by Bonne (lot 24, estimate $2-3,000); a rare, 1808 botanical work by Candolle, incomplete as to the plates (lot 35, estimate $1,500-2,500); Cook's Voyage to the Pacific, first edition, 1784, with atlas plates bound in, (estimate $10-15,000); Anne Everard's Flowers from Nature, 1835, with 13 handcolored lithographs (lot 62, estimate $1,000-1,500); a rare work by Alexander Geraldinus, written in 1524 but published in 1631, on the discovery of the West Indies (lot 90, estimate $5-8,000); La Perouse's Voyages, 1799, (lot 122, $8-12,000) and Thomas Salmon's Universal Traveller, 1752-53 (lot 164, $4-6,000). A very nice feature of PBA Galleries auctions is that they offer live, online bidding during the auction.

Aspire Auctions online February 24 - March 4

An online auction house we have not previously previewed is Aspire Auctions. Their format appears similar to that of Old World Auctions, ie an online auction which remains open for bidding (and rebidding) over an extended period of time. Their auction beginning February 24 is not solely devoted to antique maps and prints. However, they have a "works on paper" section where we spied some octavo Audubon prints, and also an Autographs, Maps, Books & Documents section that contained some cartographic material. Worth a visit to the site.

Upcoming Events

February 21. The Rocky Mountain Map Society meets at 6:30 pm in the Denver Public Library, 5th Floor, Gates Room. Wes Brown will discuss How the 1859 Gold Rush put Colorado on the Map.

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