There hasn't been much map-action lately. But a while back I found a whole pile to Michelin maps in a charity bookshop, going for a song, so I snapped them up. If nothing else, I thought I could use them as wrapping paper.
Haven't been able to bring myself to do that yet.

Does anyone know who illustrated these covers? They're signed "Blake" but interweb research has drawn a big fat nothing, or rather, nothing but a slightly stoat William and the fact that he did a bit of illustration too just doesn't help, even though he was well dead by the time Esso commissioned these.

While I was off work last week my parents were over from the mainland so we all went to the Ulster Folk Museum for a day. It's a great place, I've mentioned before, and everyone enjoyed it. Just as we were polishing off our picnic lunch my oldest boy asked if he could go and play in the coal yard. Despite images of a returning blackened child, we let him go.
A few minutes later I thought I'd better check to make sure he hadn't fallen fowl of any of the numerous hazards; I know, I thought, I'll sneak through the coal yard office and scare the b'jesus out of him (as the locals say). But, creeping in, I was greeted by a warming sight: there he was, at the desk, leafing through this lovely vintage atlas. That's me' boy.

Apparently, he was deciding where we were going to go on holiday. Somewhere off the coast of the Antarctic it is then.
(Took the opportunity to extend my UFM Flickr set too.)
Here's another one from Nick's box.
Map aside, it's interesting (well, for about 2 minutes) that the Caltex brand looked remarkably like another but a little digging reveals that it still does because they're both offspring of the same hermaphrodite parent Chevron. It's all explained here.
Thanks go to the man with the box.

Here's another specimen from Nick's bumper box of maps etc (one day, he might get it back).
Nowhere near as glamorous as the previous example it's printed on really awful paper. Dated 1943, the general poor quality of the material and print make this a strangely interesting piece of work.

Found this recently (on ebay for a couple of quid) and thought it might reveal an interesting map.
It didn't...well not that interesting.
Still, it doesn't matter because it has other things going for it to compensate. Specifically, and discovered to my great (if sad) delight: the sloping 'tab' system designed to help you identify which quarter of North America you want to look at. It's dead simple of course; the one edge is cut at a slight angle so when it's folded, map-stylee, it creates zip-zagging coloured strips that correspond to the colours in that diagram.

Nicklas has kindly lent me his bumper box of maps etc. There's lots of interesting things inside.
A major highlight being this 1965 map of New York and specifically the 1964/65 World's Fair. Published by Rand McNally & Company and sponsored by Texaco.
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