Old World Auctions

Old World Auctions Welcome to Old World Auctions on Facebook - a hub for map collectors to learn more about antique map

06/05/2026

Just highlighting a few favorite featured items from our current auction!

Auction 209 Is Online! Old World Auctions is proud to present Sale 209, with 728 lots of fine maps, charts, atlases, dec...
06/03/2026

Auction 209 Is Online! Old World Auctions is proud to present Sale 209, with 728 lots of fine maps, charts, atlases, decorative prints, illuminated manuscripts, books, and historical documents. With maps from every corner of the world, nearly half of the lots estimated below $250, and dozens of items listed at NO RESERVE, there are items to fit every interest and budget. Bidding is open through June 17, ending at 10 PM Eastern US.

See lots never before listed: https://bit.ly/4uh06EK

Harrison Godwin's 1928 map of Hollywood is a cinephile's delight, capturing the excitement of the movie industry at the ...
05/28/2026

Harrison Godwin's 1928 map of Hollywood is a cinephile's delight, capturing the excitement of the movie industry at the end of the Silent Era. A star-studded production chock-a-block with movie refererences, this rarity will be featured in our upcoming auction, which kicks off next Wednesday, June 3rd!

Here's an engraving of the twelve classical winds from Magini's edition of Ptolemy, first published in 1597. Each wind d...
05/26/2026

Here's an engraving of the twelve classical winds from Magini's edition of Ptolemy, first published in 1597. Each wind direction is depicted with a windhead and labeled with Greek names based on Timosthenes of Rhodes (fl. 270 BC) and Roman names based on Seneca (4 BC – AD 65).

If you want a closer look at Mt. Vesuvius, you could do a lot worse than this striking view from Nicolas de Fer's L'Atla...
05/21/2026

If you want a closer look at Mt. Vesuvius, you could do a lot worse than this striking view from Nicolas de Fer's L'Atlas Curieux, which includes an inset that takes you inside the active crater. Or you could do what the climbers pictured here are doing: ascend to the top and look over the edge into the fuming cone. We'll opt for the former!

Read our May 2026 newsletter featuring an article that explains how color was used on maps in Europe since the invention...
05/20/2026

Read our May 2026 newsletter featuring an article that explains how color was used on maps in Europe since the invention of the printing press through the mid-nineteenth century. The article reviews why color was added to maps, how color was applied, the differences between hand color and printed color, and how the use of color evolved over time. As always, a list of events in the map community is also included. https://bit.ly/4tKMj96

On this date in 1535, French explorer Jacques Cartier departed on his second voyage to North America. During this voyage...
05/19/2026

On this date in 1535, French explorer Jacques Cartier departed on his second voyage to North America. During this voyage he arrived in the St. Lawrence Iroquois village of Hochelaga, depicted here in the Gastaldi/Ramusio map of 1556. The map is the first published plan of a North American settlement. The land where Hochelaga stood is now known as the city of Montreal.

In the close-up, we see Cartier meeting with the Iroquois, while onlookers observe from the fortified city's walls. Cartier described the village thus: “The village is circular and is completely enclosed by a wooden palisade in three tiers like a pyramid … There are some fifty houses in this village, each about fifty or more paces in length, and twelve or fifteen in width, built completely of wood and covered in and bordered up with large pieces of bark and rind of trees, as broad as a table, which are well and cunningly lashed after their manner. And inside these houses are many rooms and chambers; and in the middle is a large space without a floor, where they light their fire and live together in common.”

On this date in 1602, English privateer Bartholomew Gosnold sighted Cape Cod and gave it its name. He appears on Elizabe...
05/15/2026

On this date in 1602, English privateer Bartholomew Gosnold sighted Cape Cod and gave it its name. He appears on Elizabeth Shurtleff's great pictorial map of Massachusetts (1930), along with his ship the Concord. On the map, you can see him in a rowboat naming Martha's Vineyard.

Time for the Map Quiz! We have obscured the identifying information on three title pages. Can you still name the mapmake...
05/13/2026

Time for the Map Quiz! We have obscured the identifying information on three title pages. Can you still name the mapmakers behind each book? (You can name the books too, if you want to play on genius mode...)

Let us take a moment to admire Jacobus Robijn's rare and beautiful Nieuw Aerdsch Pleyn (ca. 1700). Featuring allegorical...
05/11/2026

Let us take a moment to admire Jacobus Robijn's rare and beautiful Nieuw Aerdsch Pleyn (ca. 1700). Featuring allegorical decorations in the corners engraved by Jacob Harrewyn, the world map also shows California as an island and an incompletely mapped Australia and New Zealand. It is presented in a circular form on the equidistant azimuthal projection created by Le Mayerne Turquet in 1648, in which the latitudes appear as equidistant concentric circles.

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