1888 Post Office Wall Map
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GUEST:
My father, he was a land surveyor and he was working on a road somewhere in Richmond. And they were going to demolish this house, and it turns out it was a post office. And this map was in there, and he saved it, basically.
APPRAISER:
And did he have it framed?
GUEST:
Yes, he did.
APPRAISER:
Okay, which took a lot of work because of the size, but also the condition. Now, the house that was being destroyed was a post office, and this is in fact the post office map. And you can see down here, there is the insignia of the U.S. Post Office. And this is a map that was a working map for the post office. And because of that, and because the post office delivered to all these small towns, it has everything. It has an amazing amount of detail. And this map shows from up here we have Virginia, and it goes down into the Carolinas. So it's a good regional map of this area. And right here, we have Richmond. And you can see that the railroads come in and out, and the railroads were important for the post office as well. But this has a lot more than that. It has all the routes. And down at the bottom, they have a key that shows you what the different symbols mean. And they show the routes that you went to three times a week, twice a week, once a week. We can see there is a blue route, so that's one that they would do three times a week. The reds were once a week. This map was issued on February 1, 1888. That information is right in the cartouche. But they also would update these maps as they went along. Down here, they had a line where in manuscript they would write when this map was issued. This one was the first edition. This was done in February 1, 1888. What is valuable about maps are the area... This is a good area, having Virginia and the Carolinas, a very popular area. Also the information-- you can't get more information than this-- and the relevance to the time. This shows this area with unparalleled detail in 1888. All of those things give it a huge amount of value. I would say that even with this condition, because of all the good things, in a map shop, they would probably put about $1,800 on this map.
GUEST:
Oh, my God.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, so I mean a lot of money, even given the condition.
GUEST:
Even in this condition.
APPRAISER:
In perfect condition, you're probably looking at a map that would be worth about $3,000 to $4,000 in perfect shape.
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