Rare and Antique Map Blog

Selling Tomorrow: O. H. Bailey and Long Island's Wild Land Schemes

How bird’s-eye views helped turn Long Island wilderness into boomtowns, paper towns, and some of the Gilded Age’s most audacious real-estate schemes.

In the late 19th century, speculative developers transformed vast stretches of Long Island into thousands of building lots—at least on paper. This article explores how promoters used spectacular bird’s-eye views, many associated with O. H. Bailey, to sell an enticing vision of new towns and suburban prosperity that sometimes became reality, and sometimes amounted to little more than an elaborate land scam.

2026 Newberry Library Rare Map and Book Fair

2026 Newberry Library Rare Map and Book Fair

Mysterious Middle-earth Map: An Unknown Cartographer Interprets Tolkien’s World

Massive Cartographic Analysis of Middle-earth

Mysterious Map of Middle-earth: How an Anonymous 1960s-70s cartographer applied the techniques of 18th-Century exploratory mapmaking - analyzing fragmentary accounts, reconciling clues, and applying geographical theories - to interpret Tolkien's world.

How to Frame Antique Maps

Special Framing Needs of Antique Maps and Documents

Dos and Don't of Framing Rare Maps and Documents

The Empire That Never Was: Tartaria, Antique Maps, and the Invention of a Lost Civilization

Explore the Tartaria conspiracy theory, the true history of Tartary on antique maps, and how a geographic label became a lost-empire myth.

48th Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair

Friday November 6 - Sunday November 8, 2026

2026 Paris Map Fair - 25 Years - Paris

November 21, 2026. 11:00 - 6:00 PM

France's premier event for collectors and enthusiasts of antique cartography.

Hysterical Maps of the Lindgren Brothers: A Cartobibliography

An Evolving Cartobibliography

Geographicus Rare Antique Maps cartobibliography of the Lindgren Brothers Hysterical Map Series, cataloging their map output from roughly 1932 - 1950.