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A Treasure of Maps (part 2)

Filed Under retrotravels.net

I’ve had more time to sort through the treasures of National Geographic ephemera recently returned to me after years in my family’s storage. A good way to spend a Sunday.

I had been a collector of comics around the same time I was a collector of National Geographic Magazines and maps, so it seemed like common sense to store the maps in comic book boxes (and comic sleeves and boards). The maps in these boxes go back to 1913.

I knew I had once owned a lot of issues of National Geographic Magazine, but until I found this list, I had no idea of the extent of it. At one time, I owned all but 16 issues from 1913 to sometime around 1997. I ended up keeping only the oldest of the collection and donated the rest to the local library.

Growing up, I loved reading National Geographic Magazines. When I would get a new issue, I’d always turn to the Geographica section which reported on the newest geographic news around the world. Before having to donate my large collection of issues to the local library, I had carefully compiled all of the Geographica sections into a homemade book. The book included every Geographica from October, 1988 (the first) to September, 1996.

In 1995, not too long before realizing I’d have to donate most of my collection of National Geographic Magazines to the local library, I thought of creating a homemade index of all the issues released after the National Geographic 100 Year Index (1888-1988) was published. I had cut out the index of 12 issues of 1991 before giving up on the project, figuring NGS would probably release updates of their own in the future (they did).

Maps, maps, and more maps!

From left to right, Index to the National Geographic Society’s New Map of South America (1942), Index to the National Geographic Society’s New Map of Canada (1936), National Geographic Society Index to Map of Japan (1944), and Index to the National Geographic Society’s New Map of the United States (1940).

I finally had enough shelf space to take my old National Geographic Magazines out of storage. This issue discusses Hiram Bingham’s Yale/NatGeo Peruvian Expedition of 1912, his second of three expeditions to  Machu Picchu and the surrounding ruins.

Looks like a good read!

In 1964, National Geographic reprinted 1,000 copies of some of their earliest issues. This is the February, 1896 edition sitting in front of some of my earliest issues (1913-1918).

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