Old World Auctions - Maps of Rivers, Islands, and Cities
- by Thomas C. McKinney
As fall approaches this month, Old World Auctions is doing its part to usher in the new season for map collectors with the third of its four annual online-only sales. With the house’s focus on cartographic material, OWA’s Sale #150 includes 750 lots of maps and atlases, as well as old and rare books with maps, geography books, globes, prints, illuminated manuscripts, and reference books. The sale will go online September 3rd and close September 17th at 10PM eastern.
In terms of subject matter, Old World Auctions bills this sale as having a particularly high quality of maps of rivers, islands, and cities around the world. North American rivers including the St. Lawrence, Hudson, Ohio and the fictitious Longue River, as well as European like the Danube, Volga, and Dnieper are all part of Sale #150. Islands found within every ocean are mapped and available for sale—Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Iceland, Cyprus, Cuba, Jamaica, New Zealand, Tierra del Fuego, the British Isles, and Nantucket. And finally plans and views of dozens of cities around the world will be available in the sale; a rare and spectacular bird’s-eye view of Naples, Italy published by Antonio Lafreri being one of the standouts.
Individual rarities are also being featured in the sale. They include the first state of Pedro de Medina’s map of the North Atlantic Ocean, Nuevo Mundo, being the first to depict the Papal Line of Demarcation. Another is John Ogilby’s rare First Lords Proprietors map, A New Discription of Carolina by Order of the Lords Proprietors, which was employed as a promotional tool encouraging expansion and settlement in Maryland and the Carolinas in the late 1600s. Several rare and important maps of Canada including Blaeu’s only map of Canada, Extrema Americae Versus Boream, ubi Terra Nova Nova Francia, and Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan’s map of Canada and the Great Lakes, Carte Generale de Canada.
The following are ten highlights of the September sale:
Pitt's Rare Carte-a-Figures Map in Full Original Color. Moses Pitt, Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica ac Hydrographica Tabula, 1680. Estimate $11000 - $13000
Extremely Rare First State of Medina's Map. Pedro de Medina, Nuevo Mundo, 1545. Estimate $10000 - $15000
Rare Edition of Ptolemy's Map of Sri Lanka. Ptolemy/Germanus, Duodecima Asie Tabula, 1486. Estimate $6000 - $7500
Cellarius' Chart of an Earth-Centric Solar System. Cellarius/Schenk & Valck, Orbium Planetarum Terram Complectentium Scenographia, 1708. Estimate $1600 - $1900
Stunning and Scarce View of Naples. Antonio Lafreri, Quale e di Quanta Importanza, e Bellezza sia la Nobile Cita di Napole in Italia, 1566. Estimate $7000 - $9000
Blaeu's Only Map of Canada, Showing the Canadian Maritimes. Johannes Blaeu, Extrema Americae Versus Boream, ubi Terra Nova Nova Francia, Adjacentiaq, 1670. Estimate $2000 - $2300
One of the Most Decorative and Influential Maps of Southeast Asia. Linschoten/Langren, Exacta & Accurata Delineatio cum Orarum Maritimarum tum Etiam Locorum Terrestrium quae in Regionibus China..., 1596. Estimate $13000 - $15000
Lahontan's Map of Canada and the Great Lakes. Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan, Carte Generale de Canada..., 1705. Estimate $2000 - $2400
Blaeu's Strip-Map of the Dnieper River. Blaeu, Lectori S. Hunc Borysthenis Tractum ut ad Nostrum Geographiae Tabulam..., 1640. Estimate $1600 - $2000
Ogilby's Scarce and Influential First Lords Proprietors Map. Moxon/Ogilby, A New Discription of Carolina by Order of the Lords Proprietors, 1673. Estimate $12000 - $15000
Old World Auctions offers a 100% money back guarantee on the authenticity and condition of every item in the auction. They feature a 10-minute rule at the close of the auction, which keeps lots with active bidding open for an additional 10 minutes, until there are no bids on the lot for a full 10 minutes. All of their packaging and shipping is done in-house, and they ship to over 70 countries each year.
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Pietro Aquila, Psyche and Proserpina,1690. Starting price 140€
Gonnelli: Jacques Gamelin, Memento homo quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, 1779. Starting price 300€
Gonnelli: Giorgio Ghisi, The final Judgement, 1680. Starting price 480€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli Goya y Lucientes Francisco, Los Proverbios.1877. Starting price 1000 €
Gonnelli: Domenico Peruzzini, Long bearded old man, 1660. Starting price 2200€
Gonnelli: Enea Vico, Leda and the Swan,1542. Starting price 140€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Andrea Del Sarto [school of], San Giovanni Battista, 1570. Starting price 25000€
Gonnelli: Carlo Maratta, Virgin Mary and Jesus, 1660. Starting Price 1200€
Gonnelli: Louis Brion de La Tour, Sphére de Copernic Sphere de Ptolemée / Le Systême de Ptolemée. Le Systême de Ticho-Brahe…, 1766. Starting price 180€
Gonnelli Auction 59 Antique prints, paintings and maps May 20th 2025
Gonnelli: Marc’Antonio Dal Re, Ville di Delizia o Siano Palaggi Camparecci nello Stato di Milano Divise in Sei Tomi Con espressevi le Piante…, Tomo Primo, 1726. Starting price 7000€
Gonnelli: Katsushika Hokusai, Bird on a branch, 1843. Starting price 100€
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: Th. McKenney & J. Hall, History of the Indian tribes of North America, 1836-1844. Est: €50,000
Ketterer, May 26:Biblia latina vulgata, manuscript on thin parchment, around 1250. Est: €70,000
Ketterer, May 26: M. Beckmann, Fanferlieschen Schönefüßchen, 1924. Est: €10,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: A. Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum, 1574. Est: €50,000
Ketterer, May 26: M. S. Merian, Eurcarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, 1717-18. Est: €6,000
Ketterer, May 26:PAN, 9 volumes, 1895-1900. Est: €12,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: Breviarium Romanum, Latin manuscript, 1474. Est: €15,000
Ketterer, May 26: Quran manuscript from the Saadian period, Maghreb, 16th century. Est: €10,000
Ketterer, May 26: E. Hemingway, The old man and the sea, 1952. First edition in first issue jacket. Presentation copy. Est: €3,000
Ketterer Rare Books Auction May 26th
Ketterer, May 26: Flavius Vegetius Renatus, De re militari libri quatuor, 1553. Est: €3,000
Ketterer, May 26: K. Marx, Das Kapital, 1867. Est: €30,000
Ketterer, May 26: Brassaï, Transmutations, 1967. Est: €6,000
Leland Little, May 21: Signed Artist Proof of the Monumental G.O.A.T.: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali.
Leland Little, May 21: Assorted Rare Publications Related to H.P. Lovecraft, Including The Recluse Signed by Vincent Starrett.
Leland Little, May 21: Two Issues of The Vagrant, Including the First Appearance of H.P. Lovecraft's "Dagon" in Number Eleven.
Leland Little, May 21: Rare First Printing of Anne of Green Gables, With ALS from the Author.
Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, In First Issue Jacket.
Leland Little, May 21: The Limited Paumanok Edition of The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman.
Leland Little, May 21: Beautifully Bound Limited Flaubert Edition of The Works of Guy de Maupassant.
Leland Little, May 21: First Edition of Bonaparte's Celebrated American Ornithology, With Spectacular Hand-Colored Plates.
Leland Little, May 21: A Rare Complete Set of Jardine's The Naturalist's Library, With Hand-Colored Plates.
Leland Little, May 21: Invitation to the Lincoln-Johnson National Inaugural Ball, March 4th, 1865.
Leland Little, May 21: A Scarce Inscribed First Edition of James Baldwin's Nobody Knows My Name.
Leland Little, May 21: Picasso's Le Goût du Bonheur, Limited Edition.
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR