Rare Book Hub is simply the latest effort to aggregate bibliographic and transactional history of collectible books and paper.  Such efforts have long been necessary to focus and update the field’s understanding about books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera.  Old Maps, for more than forty years, has provided perspective about collectible maps and Curt and Marti Griggs has accepted our offer to have their history and scholarship added to ours.

 

One hundred and seventy-five years ago the world of collectible paper took wing when advances in literacy, printing, and papermaking turned random examples into the bedrock of the field we call collectible paper today.

 

Over those decades the gathering of the essential facts turned into specialties, one of the most important, collectible maps. Curt and Marti Griggs took over Old Maps in 1999.  Over the years it was a business that over time became a community.  Graham Arader, the New York map dealer, “remembers the Griggs as knowledgeable, cheerful, accommodating and honest.  They encouraged participation and the field benefited.”

 

Old Maps, will be a separate search for the rest of the year as their members tell us what they prefer.