Monday, June 14, 2010

A&D: The Michael5000 Vintage Map Collection


Have I ever mentioned that I have a collection of vintage* maps of the City of Roses? Because I totally do.


Also, of the Beaver State.


...as well as, to a much lesser extent, pretty much anyplace else.


Mrs.5000, who is awesome, even made me a special map box a few years back.


It has all sorts of little map-appropriate pockets and compartments inside. Because Mrs.5000 is awesome!


*"Vintage," at least when I'm using it, means "too old to be useful and not old enough to be valuable." I'm not really a fan of collecting things for the sake of their cash value, or that I need to worry about, and indeed if I suspected that anything in my map box was worth fifteen bucks I'd have it on Ebay in a heartbeat. I don't care about what condition they're in, either. I just like lookin' at them.

Acquisition: The newest addition to the collection is the 1956 Tidewater Oil Company OREGON-IDAHO MONTANA Road Map which I bought for a cool U.S. dollar while tagging along with a recent expedition to an antique shop.

This is awesome because, one, I've never even heard of the Tidewater Oil Company, and two, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana? What a weird group of states to lump on a single map! (Whereas Oregon and Washington, which both fill the same size rectangle at the same scale, are a common pairing.)

BeaverStaters of today can see lots of changes in a 54 year old map, on which Gresham, Tigard, and Beaverton are distinct towns a ways outside of Portland's built-up area. Hillsboro and Forest Grove don't even look like satellite towns. And although I suspect there are many Portlanders today who have never gone to Salem by any route except I-5, here is evidence of a world where the freeway was only a plan on the drawing board.


Idaho and Montana get relatively short shrift from Tidewater Oil, wedged in at a coarse scale along with maps of the Mt. Hood Scenic Highway and Crater Lake. Indeed, Crater Lake National Park -- which features, as you may know, a lake in a crater -- gets almost as much space on the page as the Gem State.

Awesomeness.

2 comments:

Jenners said...

I'm not surprised in the least that you have a vintage map collection and a lovely box to keep them in. In fact, I would be surprised if you DIDN'T.

Aviatrix said...

I don't care about what condition they're in, either. I just like lookin' at them.

And that is one of the reasons that you can be my friend. I have a bunch of old, expired aviation charts, just because it's very cool to see what the airspace used to look like.