Antique Map of Pennsylvania, The Keystone State, Rand McNally, 1899

Name: Antique Map of Pennsylvania, The Keystone State, Rand McNally, 1899
Brand: Rand McNally
SKU: BG-12793-2-17
Price: 440 USD
Availability: InStock

$440

€395 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

Buy now Ask a question

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: Pennsylvania
Reference: BG-12793-2-17

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

Rand McNally devoted pages 74 and 75 of its 1899 indexed atlas to this antique map of Pennsylvania, a double-page county map carrying a key to more than 180 railroad companies and an inset of the rail junctions around Pittsburgh.

The map runs from the short crescent of Lake Erie shoreline in the northwest corner across the ridge-and-valley folds of the Allegheny Mountains, printed in dense hachured relief running diagonally across the center of the state, to the more open farming counties of the southeast around Harrisburg, Lancaster and Philadelphia. New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey are each named along the appropriate edge.

The railroad key fills the upper margin in two dense columns, a reflection of Pennsylvania's position as the most heavily railroaded state in the union by the 1890s, its anthracite and bituminous coal traffic alone supporting dozens of short lines threading the mountain valleys. The small inset in the upper left enlarges the crowded junctions around Pittsburgh, and county lines throughout are printed in red over pale tints. A note along the foot cross-references the adjoining plates for New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Ohio.

Behind the sheet stands one of the great names of American map publishing. William Rand opened a printing business in Chicago in the 1850s, Andrew McNally joined him, and by the 1890s Rand McNally was one of the leading map publishers in the United States, with a reputation built on railroad and commercial maps kept current from issue to issue.

The sheet is a color lithograph, the outline printed in black and every color printed over it rather than applied by hand. Once framed, this antique map of Pennsylvania would suit a home or office in the state 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.

★