Antique Map of Northern Michigan and Lake Superior, Copper Country, 1899

Name: Antique Map of Northern Michigan and Lake Superior, Copper Country, 1899
Brand: Rand McNally
SKU: BG-12793-2-43
Price: 385 USD
Availability: InStock

$385

€345 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1899
Maker: Rand McNally
Kind: Maps
Technique: Lithograph
Color: Printed color
Size: 52 × 69 cm (20.5 × 27.2 in)
Condition: Good. Good condition for its age. Light, even age toning, minor handling wear to the sheet edges and the original central fold as issued. Please review the images for further condition details.
Period: The Gilded Age
Places: Michigan
Reference: BG-12793-2-43

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.

Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured. Delivery and import charges.

About this piece

Copper country fills this antique map of Northern Michigan and Lake Superior from the Rand McNally indexed atlas of 1899, a double-page sheet on pages 222 and 223 centred on the Upper Peninsula.

The map runs from the Wisconsin and Minnesota shore in the west to the Canadian border and the Ontario shoreline in the east, with Isle Royale, Michipicoten Island and the Apostle Islands all shown. The lake is the dominant feature, rendered with stipple shading and the international boundary traced through its center. The Keweenaw Peninsula carries a noticeably dense cluster of place names and rail lines, Houghton, Calumet and Hancock among them, a direct record of the copper district that made this corner of the state one of the country's principal sources of copper at the close of the nineteenth century.

A railroad legend numbered in red at upper right lists a dozen companies, the Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint Paul, the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic, the Lake Superior and Ishpeming, the Mineral Range, and the Escanaba and Lake Superior among them, lines built to carry copper and iron ore from the Keweenaw and the Marquette and Menominee ranges to the lake ports. Much of the interior away from the mining and rail corridor remains sparsely labeled forest and swamp. Scale is given as 16 statute miles to the inch, and a note directs the reader to the adjoining Wisconsin, Minnesota and Southern Michigan sheets.

Rand McNally's roots lie in a Chicago printing business started by William Rand in the 1850s and joined by Andrew McNally. The firm had become one of the foremost map publishers in the United States by the 1890s, and its indexed atlas of 1899 shows the house speciality at work: railroad and commercial maps revised from issue to issue.

Technically the sheet is a lithograph with printed color: the outline was printed in black and the colors were printed over it, so none of the coloring was added by hand. Once framed, this antique map of Northern Michigan and Lake Superior would suit a home or office in Michigan today, and it will appeal to collectors of American state maps and railroad history.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light, even age toning, minor handling wear to the sheet edges and the original central fold as issued. Please review the images for further condition details.

This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.

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