Shop for Antique Prints, Maps, Illustrated Books, Vintage Magazines, Ephemera
Welcome to oldimprints.com galleries of historic original vintage graphics: Antique Prints (including vintage travel posters), Antique Maps (with early 20th century pictorial and bird's eye view maps), Collectible Books (illustrated and children's books a specialty), Vintage Magazines, & Paper Ephemera . ALL THE ITEMS LISTED ON OUR WEBSITE ARE ANTIQUE OR VINTAGE, AS DESCRIBED. We ship worldwide: please browse & bookmark this page!
We've just published a listing of recently catalogued vintage magazines, including several obscure titles. Pictured here is a double page spread from a Modern Packaging magazine, published at the height of the Art Deco era, to promote the effectiveness of superior packaging in merchandising a product. The magazine itself is a work of art with many tipped in samples. Another surprising find is a magazine focused on gloves; as time and society changed with less gloved hands, the name changed to "Fashion Accessories incorporating Gloves magazine." Other vintage magazines in the list include several issues of 1940s Mademoiselle magazine, which distinguished itself with contributions by literary figures such as W.H. Auden and Paul Bowles. What every well-rounded young woman of the age needed to function in society... I have to say that the fashions are what take my eye, including some wonderful bridal sections. Click on the link at top right of this page to view the full list of titles.
Gloves. LOT OF FOUR ISSUES.
FASHION - GLOVES)
RRP: $145.00
FOUR COMPLETE ISSUES. Black and white photo illustrations and ads, 72+56+32+50pp, 12 x 9 inches, in pictorial paper wrappers as issued (softbound). Covers lightly worn with address labels to two issues and faint green pencil notations to one issue;
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I've just returned from Florida, where the Miami International Map Fair is held each year, luring map dealers and collectors from all over the world to the sunny south. Vintage travel ephemera graphically reflects the perennial human desire to escape from the snow and rain. This 1912 pamphlet "Cuba: A Winter Paradise" has a wonderful three panel cover of well-heeled tourists in that golden age of travel gazing out over the Bay of Havana. Although unsigned the figures are in the style of J.C. Leyendecker. The interior centrefold is a beautiful panoramic view of Havana under sunny skies.
Cuba. A Winter Paradise. The Mecca of Tourists.
CUBA / RAILWAYS)
RRP: $225.00
BOOKLET, color and black and white photo illustrations, color maps, 88pp, 8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches unfolding to 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch sheets, color pictorial wrappers (softbound). Travel stamp to inner panel, short tear at top edge, overall very good to fin
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Another Louisville & Nashville R.R. pamphlet of that era touts the perfect climate of the Gulf Coast in winter, with an 8 panel foldout of the rail route along the sunny coast from Pensacola to New Orleans. A route I would enjoy travelling on this grey Portland day!
By 1938 a more popular market was appealed to in such humorous Greyhound maps as this "Sun Map of Florida and the Gulf Coast", contrasting the icy reaches of the Northeast and Midwest to the warmth and pleasant outdoor pastimes of the Southeast.
The Third Hong Kong International Antiquarian Book Fair was a most successful and enjoyable event. THANK YOU to all those who stopped, browsed, chatted and shopped at the booth I shared with my sister Sally Burdon of Asia Bookroom (Australia). It is exciting to exhibit at this event and be a part of encouraging the enjoyment and collecting of antiquarian books, prints and maps. There is a great tradition of collecting in China, but the pleasures of collecting historical printed material, particularly European in origin, are not yet widely appreciated. What my sister and I particularly notice is the enthusiasm of those who do attend, which makes it for us, as enthusiastic as we are about what we sell, a particularly rewarding event. Below are a few of the items we featured at the Book Fair.
Right:
True Picture of Crowning Ceremony of the Emperor of The Great Qing Empire. Coronation ceremony of the chinese emperor. Meiji 43. 1910.
Color lithograph 15 x 19 1/2 inches (38 x 49 cm) mounted on decorative paper sheet size approximately 18 x 20 1/2 inches.
Publication information in Japanese below and to the right of the image.
Left:
Map of Canton. No date. Ca. 1908.
Map scroll, color printed, map area 17 1/4 x 21 inches (55 x 54 cm) on sheet size approximately 25 x 22 inches, decorative floral border, wooden rods at upper and lower edge.
Title in Chinese characters and English. Map labeled with Chinese characters and some English eg. Paddy Fields, North Parade Ground, Mint. However the English is not reliable: points of the compass are incorrectly translated on the directional compass at upper left. The map and decorative botanical border are printed on one sheet (as opposed to the map being mounted onto the decorative backing). There is no date or place of publication on the map, but circa 1908.
Pictorial Maps of the Twentieth Century
are an area of collecting that has, until recently, received little attention by dealers, collectors, and libraries. However, along with the particular rewards of an unexplored area of collecting comes the frustration of the lack of documentation regarding the creative forces behind what was an explosive cultural phenomenon in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Pictorial maps have long appealed to me because they incorporate two of my interests: a fascination with other cultures (which for someone who has had a very peripatetic upbringing means all cultures!) and a love of pictures. Therefore, as I acquire these artifacts reflecting the popular culture and design aesthetic of their day, I endeavour to research their origins. Even if produced in relatively large quantity (often given away free, some with instructions to “pin on the wall”), many of these maps are now quite scarce because of their intended ephemeral nature.
MacDonald Gill’s
Wonderground Map of London Town (1913) has always struck me as a unique product from a rather pedestrian period of map publication: an outstanding graphic — an oversized explosion of color and humor—harnessed to the goal of publicizing a burgeoning popular transportation system serving a wide public base. Over time I gathered many other maps from the 1920s and 30s that showed a clear debt to Gill’s prototype and thought of them as being appropriately grouped under the umbrella term “wonder maps.” My article exploring this genre
“MacDonald Gill: The Wonderground Map of 1913 and Its Influence” appears in the Spring 2009 issue of the
Journal of the International Map Collectors Society. In this article, I discuss what were, for me, the unexpected influences behind the creation of the Wonderground Map and its innovative features, concluding with illustrations of subsequent “wonder maps” from around the world. Copies of the Journal can be purchased from the IMCOS website at
www.imcos.org. Pictured below is a sampling of these Gill-influenced maps.
If you find yourself falling under the spell of pictorial maps,
click here to sign up for my pictorial maps listing (a brief catalog that I will email on an occasional basis). I look forward to receiving
your particular interests in this field and comments on my article and any information you can share on the artists and publishers behind these striking images which provide such an entertaining glimpse into our past.
Email me if you would like to be informed when a particular map displayed below is available for sale.
Click here to view a selection of our pictorial maps
This is a section of the Wonderground Map, showing some of its distinctive characteristics including the "speech bubbles."
Colour of an Old City. A Map of Boston Decorative and Historical. Designed by Edwin Olsen and Blake Clark, published by Houghton Mifflin 1926. Color pictographic / pictorial map, 28 x 37 inches on sheet size 28 1/4 x 37 1/2 folding as issued to 9 1/2 x 12 3/4 into color pictorial envelope.
Edwin Olsen and Blake Clark (illus).
A Kite View of Philadelphia and the Sesqui Centennial International Exposition. (Envelope title: This is a Section of the Map of Philadelphia Contained in this Envelope Size 28 1/2 x 37 1/2 inches). Color pictographic / pictorial map on sheet 28 1/2 x 37 3/4 inches, folding as issued into a color pictorial envelope 10 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches. Houghton Mifflin Co. 1926.
Edwin Olsen and Blake Clark (illus).
Map of the City of Washington in the District of Columbia shewing the Architecture and History from the Most Ancient Times Down to the Present. Cover title: The Capital Map.
Color pictographic / pictorial map 27 3/4 x 36 1/2 inches on sheet size 28 x 36 3/4 folding as issued to 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 into color pictorial envelope. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston. 1926.
39375 Farrow, C.V. (illus).
A Map of the Wondrous Isle of Manhattan (The Scale is all Askew). Cover title: A Map of the Wondrous Isle of Manhattan. Color pictographic / pictorial map, 24 1/4 x 39 inches on sheet size 25 x 39 3/4 inches folding as issued to 10 x 12 3/4 into color pictorial envelope. Fuessle & Coleman. New York. 1926. On envelope: Published by the Washington Square Book Shop.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge Map. 28 1/2 x 38 inches. John Sands. Sydney. No date. Ca. 1932. This map was designed and drawn by Russell Sydney Lloyd of Bondi, Sydney; figures were drawn by Miss Vic (?) Cowdroy. Printed by John Sands, Pruitt Street, Sydney. Commemorates the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on March 19th, 1932. Printed around border: Breathes There A Man With Soul So Dead Who Never To Himself Hath Said "This is My Own, My Native Land."? If Such There Be, Go Mark Him Well!. (Sir Walter Scott)
