Caribbean Vacation Map

The third map I'll feature here (though I don't think it's the third I ever bought) is of the Lesser Antilles and it's one of C.S. Hammond's.

I know the image quality here isn't the best. Perhaps I can try again later and update this post.

The map is not the most beautiful I own. I bought it mostly as a souvenir of a cruise I was on that stopped in Puerto Rico, or as this map says "Porto Rico".

The map is a fun one to me. It offers that snapshot of history I love, showing places which are currently sovereign states as colonies, unusual spellings and a case where the map spills outside it's own borders, as does Trinidad and Tobago.

Originally, I thought that the map was cut out of an older magazine, based on the paper and because it's not a full page, just an imperfectly cut out map. After researching the information in the map legend though, I believe it almost certainly came from an atlas.

The problem with this legend, and the mystery of this map is that it doesn't give me a year. I know Hammond began publishing maps in 1900. This map, came in a folder upon which the seller had jotted down circa 1910. So-far, so good. Only, just because a vendor says a thing, does not make it true. Especially this person, who was a general antiques dealers and had no maps other than this one. (By the way, I paid nowhere near the price listed under the date).

My first search ended up at David Rumsey (as do all searches for antique maps). He has a map that's nearly identical to mine, but published in 1948.

If you take a look at his site, you'll see that the map is very similar to mine, but zoom in on Porto Rico. The map on Rumsey's site lists the island as Puerto Rico. So these maps are not the same, and given that Puerto Rico replaced Porto Rico, I think I'm safe to assume that my map predates 1948. See, for example, this website (which I have nothing to do with) selling a different Hammond map of Porto Rico from 1910 with the same spelling as mine.

Then I came across a fabulous site for maps of the Caribbean called Caribmap. They have a map, produced by Hammond, very similar to mine from "the New World Loose Leaf Atlas" published in 1931. Take a look at it here. It's hard to spot any differences. The only one that jumped at me is not part of the map itself, but is the note "rb-29" in the bottom left corner. I know my map is poorly cut out, but I think it has enough of a margin that if my map was the same as the Caribmap one, I'd see that annotation.

So again, a map leads me on a little mystery, and I've learned a lot in the search. I know Hammond did publish world atlases circa 1910, but I don't have images of any of them to readily look through. I don't have an answer to this one though, and hopefully, once more, some friendly expert out there can point me in the right direction.

My First Map

If you took a minute to visit my "Why I'm Mappy" page you'll have seen that my first ever antique map purchase was from and is of Paris, though it's actually titled: "Seine".

I doubt that this is a particularly rare or valuable map, but I know very little about it, and my normally good online map research skills have come up a bit short.


The map indicates that it's from France's Atlas Departemental, and upon closer look it's clear that this is not really a map of Paris, but really of it's environs.



If you look at the center of the map, what would be the core of Paris, there's very little detail. There are a few clues to the maps age though. The first being the really gorgeous view at the top of the map.

It has images of "les Invalides" and Notre Dame, but not the Eiffel Tower, which was built in the late 1880's. Also, a close look at the map seems to show some rail-lines, which weren't built before the 1830's, so the map is probably somewhere in that range. The map also includes some statistics about Paris, and notes that it's population is 815,000 inhabitants. That helps me date the city too, since Wikipedia suggests that that last time the city had that sized population was around the mid-1830's.

Stats on Paris, showing 815,000 inhabitants

I don't know if this is the prettiest, or most interesting map in my collection, but it has a special place in my heart because it was the one that started it all for me.

Another thing I love about this map is that there are some places where it's been, at least a little, marked-up. It's one of those reminders that this is a piece of history and that I am certainly not the first to have owned it.

A rail-line and some markups

I'd be thrilled to have anyone with any insights tell me more about it.