Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
line. Typically, they get off to a fast start, scooping up the low-hanging fruit in their focus
area, but the really rare items might come up for sale only once in a decade. Some collect-
ors have spent twenty or thirty years chasing that elusive last map, only to be outbid when
one finally surfaces. “Put, in capital letters: FRUSTRATING,” Ian Harvey had told me in
LondonwhenIaskedhimtodescribethelotofthemapcollector.“HECOULDN'THAVE
WHAT HE WANTED.”
The library walls are lined with framed portraits of great cartographers and shelves full
of map books. It's clearly a place for scholarly research, not just storage of valuables. “I
spend hours in here,” says Leonard. “I look at them over and over and over.”
“The more you look at them, the more you'll find,” agrees Phil. “I spend a lot of time
studying maps with a magnifying glass.” You can't really say that about any other collect-
ible I can think of. The Roth-mans love art as well—there are some Renoir sketches and a
small Pissarro framed nearby—but no painting is as inexhaustible as a map.
Two hundred twenty of Leonard's favorite maps aren't in his library at all; they hang in
sliding cupboards he's custom-built next to his bedroom closet. It's the world's largest col-
lection of map neckties.
“This is magnificent!” exclaims Phil, who is also an expert on mapemblazoned miscel-
lany (cartifacts, collectors call them). His Marin County home contains the largest collec-
tion of map jigsaw puzzles ever assembled by man.
“I'm running out of room,” says Leonard. “I need to make another hole in the wall.” He
never goes anywhere without shopping for a souvenir tie printed with a local map. Some-
times he comes up dry, though—he just got back from Chile, where there wasn't a single
map tie to be found.
“That'sweird,”Irespond.“Ithoughtskinnytieswerecomingback!”Deadsilencegreets
my attempt at South American geographic humor. I see now that the world's largest array
of cartographic neck-wear is nothing to joke about.
Many early maps, printed before the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, have survived
the centuries in astonishingly good condition. They were printed on rag paper, made pre-
dominantly of cotton, linen, or hemp fiber, which is stronger and less acidic than the wood
pulp-based papers widely used since. That's why a Jodocus Hondius map of Asia from
1613 might still be bright and pristine, while that yellow
Cathy
comic strip on your par-
ents' fridge looks like it's been through a nuclear holocaust. Most of these older maps will
outlive us all.
It's possible they'll also outlive the hobby of map collecting itself. More and more col-
lections are winding up in the bowels of museums and libraries, thanks to well-meaning
donorswithascholarlylegacyoranicetaxdeductioninmind.Asaresult,thehigh-quality
manuscript maps still in circulation get scarcer every year. “A lot of people, when they die,
will their collection to someplace like UC Berkeley,” explains Phil. “And it goes into the
