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Maps
Apr 16, 2009 12:31:57 GMT
Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2009 12:31:57 GMT
This thread started by casimiraAn endless incurable fascination with. If I'm guilty of hoarding anything it is maps. Somehow it seems criminal to throw away something that so much work was entailed in creating. I have a couple boxes of maps,many obsolete I'm sure. Doesn't matter. I suppose I could one day wallpaper a room with. I used to love to draw maps however hopeless they resulted as I would always end up going off the paper with a critical route. I have finally framed an old geological survey map of where I was born and the surrounding environs,ponds I skated on,other haunts representing other uh,rites of passage shall we say.A literal trip down memory lane...
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Maps
Apr 16, 2009 15:26:11 GMT
Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2009 15:26:11 GMT
comment by kerouac2I have always loved maps and never throw one away. I also pull them out of other people's trash when I see them there. Using Lonely Planet guides, I have found that many of their street detail maps (such as for the 'hotel zone' in an Asian town) are hopelessly incorrect, forgetting streets, or making up nonexistent ones. I can't count the number of times I have almost written to them to tell them, but I always decide 'fuck them' in the end and let other people have the same mishaps. As a child, I would make my own maps of invented places. As an adult, I have been known to amuse myself even in Paris, sketching a map as I walk randomly through the streets along the lines of a bus route map -- just putting in the intersections and names regarding the cross streets but no other detail. Since there is not a single straight street in Paris, it is always interesting to compare my intuition of north, east, west and south to the reality of a professional map later. Sometimes I am very close to reality, but sometimes I'm totally out of kilter.
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Maps
Apr 16, 2009 16:07:39 GMT
Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2009 16:07:39 GMT
comment by casimira -- Perhaps there's a hidden cartographer among us and we could create our very own Any Port members map.(not too specific of course,countries and cities).
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Maps
Apr 16, 2009 17:57:47 GMT
Post by Kimby on Apr 16, 2009 17:57:47 GMT
I save maps too, and have a bunch rescued from old discarded National Geographic magazines. Which gets me into trouble now and then, as when I stated that Malta was a British possession, which it used to be, in 1964 when the map was printed....
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Maps
Apr 22, 2009 22:14:16 GMT
Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2009 22:14:16 GMT
I have a slew of NYC subway maps,few have changed THAT much but I can't resist when I travel there taking one out of grimy scratched up plexiglass receptacle. Now,with the new 2nd Ave. line going in thy'll have to print up new ones!
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Maps
Apr 22, 2009 22:24:15 GMT
Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2009 22:24:15 GMT
I am enthralled with really old Paris metro maps, because so much has changed -- lines have been extended, new lines have been created, station names have changed, some stations have disappeared... it's a completely different city. On this particular maps, two lines -- 2 and 6 -- are completely missing for some reason, although they had been built. Why were they closed at that time?
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Maps
Apr 23, 2009 8:53:36 GMT
Post by hwinpp on Apr 23, 2009 8:53:36 GMT
I love maps too. I must have had 10 atlases in Germany, old, new, historical. During the first 10 years of traveling I only used maps.
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Maps
Apr 23, 2009 13:43:46 GMT
Post by bjd on Apr 23, 2009 13:43:46 GMT
We have a huge box of old maps at home, as well as atlases that are completely out of date -- an Oxford Atlas from the 1950s, an old French atlas from the early 20th century. I just bought a new atlas at Christmas to replace the National Geographic one from the early 1980s -- so many new countries since then!
There are stations missing on that Paris subway map, at least if I can suppose that the stations were all put in when the lines were built.
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Maps
Apr 23, 2009 16:29:49 GMT
Post by Kimby on Apr 23, 2009 16:29:49 GMT
Along with maps, old Plat Books are fascinating. These are booklets produced by the government that showed property boundaries and land ownerships. We found an old one for the county where my Dad grew up in Michigan and it showed parcels owned by many family members from both sides of the family. Today these lands have passed into other hands, mostly as public hunting grounds or wildlife sanctuaries.
But nowadays few governments here produce plat books anymore. Too expensive and they become outdated too quickly. Plus you can find ownerships online nowadays. But not in map form... ;-(
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Maps
Jun 2, 2009 12:01:14 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2009 12:01:14 GMT
www.martayanlan.com/cgi-bin/image.cgi?2635.zm.1.jpgSome really beautiful antique maps available (starting at $1,000US),worth a look at especially the zoomed in details. The one of New Orleans I looked at with fascination for a long time. A little bit of everything.
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Maps
Jun 2, 2009 14:50:02 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on Jun 2, 2009 14:50:02 GMT
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Maps
Jun 2, 2009 16:02:51 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2009 16:02:51 GMT
Whoops,thought that's what I posted,thanks Bixa. I got really hung up on that NOLA map.
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Maps
Jun 2, 2009 16:41:56 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2009 16:41:56 GMT
Now this is a great map site.
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Maps
Jun 2, 2009 20:23:01 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2009 20:23:01 GMT
very cool,thanks
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Maps
Jun 4, 2009 5:26:38 GMT
Post by happytraveller on Jun 4, 2009 5:26:38 GMT
I love maps, I have two drawers full of maps. I particularly like the detailed hiking maps where you can see the smallest huts and even trees and you know to the spot where you are. Love it ! We have a world map put up in one of our rooms where we have highlighted all the countries we have visited so far. To be continued
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Maps
May 20, 2010 21:43:59 GMT
Post by Jazz on May 20, 2010 21:43:59 GMT
Today I found these beautiful historic maps of Paris on paris1900.lartnouveau.com/plan/paris_ancien/plan_par1575.htmAnd of course, we have a thread. the map sites (Casi, Kerouac) are great! 1575 1615 1640 The different walls of Paris from Gallic-Roman times(1st-4th century to 1845 Paris under the reign of Francois 1st
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Maps
May 20, 2010 22:55:07 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on May 20, 2010 22:55:07 GMT
Totally cool and totally beautiful! I just love that angled bird's eye view -- the one that I guess today we could call Google Earth view. But there was no way the city could have been seen at that angle when those maps were created, making them all the more astounding.
In the maps of 1615 and 1640, are those artificial islands with formal gardens on them in the bottom right section of each, or are they supposed to be compasses?
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Maps
May 21, 2010 3:27:58 GMT
Post by fumobici on May 21, 2010 3:27:58 GMT
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Maps
May 21, 2010 3:48:15 GMT
Post by cristina on May 21, 2010 3:48:15 GMT
Fumobici, those are beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing them - I don't think I have ever seen anything like this. How do you engrave the the billiard balls, may I ask?
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Maps
May 21, 2010 4:07:06 GMT
Post by fumobici on May 21, 2010 4:07:06 GMT
It's really quite simple. One just needs to polish them up, engrave where you want lines and add pigment to the scribed bits with a tiny paintbrush. It only stays where the scribed lines are.
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Maps
May 21, 2010 4:14:43 GMT
Post by cristina on May 21, 2010 4:14:43 GMT
OK then, perhaps I need the engraving 101 lesson. What tool do you use to engrave them? How do you accurately place different color pigments within one part of a country (or animal)? What kind of pigments do you use? How long does it take to complete one of these? Also, is this a hobby? Or do you sell these? Give me some time and I will come up with more questions.
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Maps
May 21, 2010 15:15:00 GMT
Post by fumobici on May 21, 2010 15:15:00 GMT
OK then, perhaps I need the engraving 101 lesson. What tool do you use to engrave them? W.S. Starrett machinist's scribe.How do you accurately place different color pigments within one part of a country (or animal)? Using a 00 or 000 watercolor brush.What kind of pigments do you use? Oil color and India ink. How long does it take to complete one of these? From perhaps 50 to 200 hours.Also, is this a hobby? Or do you sell these? They are sold in galleries around the US.Give me some time and I will come up with more questions.
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Maps
May 21, 2010 15:36:20 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on May 21, 2010 15:36:20 GMT
Fumobici, what incredibly exquisite work!
How ever did you get into this? Is it considered a type of scrimshaw? Are the balls approximately the same size as contemporary billiard balls? Are there online galleries where they can be purchased?
Sorry about all the questions, but you can't show something like that and not expect babbling admiration and clamoring for information.
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Maps
May 21, 2010 17:19:03 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 21, 2010 17:19:03 GMT
Those are fabulous, fumobici. I have always been a great fan of the horrible monsters that roam the high seas.
Have you worked on anything larger than a billiard ball?
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Maps
May 21, 2010 17:46:54 GMT
Post by fumobici on May 21, 2010 17:46:54 GMT
No, but billiard balls can be up to around 3 inches in diameter which looks huge to one accustomed to modern conventional balls. I had a connection for old Russian billiard balls turned from mammoth ivory that were that large, in fact the first globe pictured was made from one of those. In the czarist era, the Russian aristocracy would build enormous billiard tables as status symbols and the diameter of the balls is a set proportion of the table's dimensions. They used mammoth ivory for most of those, firstly because it was plentiful in Russia and secondly because it mammoth tusks are much larger than elephant.
Bixa: I had a website for years where I sold these and other artwork but it was rather time consuming maintaining it and keeping it updated, plus I didn't really need to do that as demand exceeded what I could produce anyway so I just let the galleries I've done business with for many years handle all the retail headaches. I am considering building a new website, but I'm hardly anxious to begin as I'm an old school HTML coder (think coding in Word) and doing one from scratch is a fairly daunting proposition, plus having a website means answering a lot of email inquiries most of which never result in a sale although it is sometimes nice to communicate with buyers as the gallery process insulates you from what can sometimes be useful feedback. Plus I have no apparent aptitude for sales, my pitch generally consists of: "If you like it buy it, if you don't then fine. And no, the prices aren't negotiable." Hardly the stuff of a brilliant career in sales.
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Maps
May 21, 2010 18:16:00 GMT
Post by bjd on May 21, 2010 18:16:00 GMT
Where do you copy the globe maps from? Are they dated?
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Maps
May 21, 2010 18:18:46 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 21, 2010 18:18:46 GMT
Just exquisite work Fumobici,really beautiful. What painstaking detail. Wow,am blown away by. Thanks for sharing these.
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Maps
May 22, 2010 11:11:26 GMT
Post by Jazz on May 22, 2010 11:11:26 GMT
These are remarkable works of art, fumobici. I love the last two.
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Maps
May 22, 2010 12:03:56 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 22, 2010 12:03:56 GMT
Those globes are incredible, fumobici. You have a real talent. Amazing.
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Maps
May 22, 2010 15:23:57 GMT
Post by bixaorellana on May 22, 2010 15:23:57 GMT
Somehow it seems criminal to throw away something that so much work was entailed in creating. That's so true. I used to have a bound collection of charts for the a large part of the lower Mississippi River. Outdated nautical charts are downright dangerous if used for navigation, but that doesn't lessen the appeal of poring over them. Trying to find an internet image of one of those charts, I came across this site, which is huge and encompasses everything from electronic charts to custom figurehead carving to antique maps. That's what led me to this treasure house of a site: Click on the picture to be taken to the home page. Illustration above is here. And you know that feeling of just wanting to fall into something? With a Second Life account, you can enter these maps: Hundreds of historical maps have been placed on the Rumsey Map Islands allowing visitors to explore them in ways only possible in virtual worlds. See a preview video of David Rumsey’s avatar, Map Darwin, on the Rumsey Map Islands.
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