Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in antique American maps & prints
![Paul Paige, a map of CAPE COD. East Brewster, Mass.: Paul Paige, [ca. 1940?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/BRM3355-Paige-Cape-Cod-ca-1940_lowres-e1564432480853-150x150.jpg)
A delightful pictorial map of Cape Cod featuring bold design and vibrant color. It highlights the Cape’s fundamental virtues as a vacation destination, including “500 miles of shoreline[,] 300 miles of beaches[,] 1000 miles of highway[,] as many miles of byways[, and] 300 lakes.” The details identify towns and villages; sightseeing destinations; and, by means […]
A rare and striking propaganda poster celebrating the importance and might of the French Navy, probably issued on the eve of the German invasion in 1940. The poster features a central map of the world, with France, its colonies and territories highlighted in yellow, major shipping routes in red, and tiny triangles indicating French naval […]
An exuberant and decorative pictorial map by F. E. Cheeseman, recapping the 1939 football season, at a time when the college game was dominant. The central image is a map of the United States, upon which illustrator F. E. Cheeseman has overlaid hundreds of images including football players in action as well as the seals, […]
![SPK [or] PSK, CONFIANCE… SES AMPUTATIONS SE POURSUIVENT MÉTHODIQUEMENT (“Have Faith… The Systematic Amputations Are Continuing.”) [Paris, 1941 or 1942.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/BRM2896-Confiance_lowres-e1566946164870-150x150.jpg)
An iconic propaganda poster, published in German-occupied France and depicting Churchill as a badly-wounded octopus. Confiance was intended to undermine support for both the British and Free French forces in the early years of the Second World War. It features possibly the ugliest octopus ever rendered in print, bearing the face of Winston Churchill rendered […]
A large, decorative and enthusiastic 1941 map of southern Africa, reflecting both the sensibilities and the hard political realities of the late-Colonial era. The map depicts Africa below 1° north latitude, with territories color-coded according to the colonizing or controlling European power—pink for the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia; green for Portuguese Mozambique and […]
A striking 1943 poster depicting options for Allied offensives against the Axis, drawn by Robert M. Chapin for Time magazine. The poster features side-by-side maps of the European and Asia-Pacific Theatres on a stereographic projection, giving the viewer the sense of seeing the Earth from space. The theatres of war are, in a sense, carved […]
![[ Aviation safety ] They Cheer When You Forget Your Maps. NP: Directorate of Air Traffic and Safety, and Directorate of Safety Education C—L—4, ca. 1943-45.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/BRM3082-They-Cheer-When-You-Forget_lowres-e1541854252246-150x150.jpg)
A good-natured aviation safety poster issued by the U.S. Air Force during the Second World War. The poster features a soldier in warm-weather gear standing in front of a fighter labeled “Desert Patrol.” Bemused and shivering, he stands calf-deep in snow, while Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo look on happily from behind an igloo. The caption reads […]
![U.S. Government Printing Office, Nav War Map NO. 2 [:] THE SOUTH CHINA SEA AREA. Washington, D.C.: Navy Department, 1944.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/BRM2933-Nav-War-Map-2-1944_lowres-e1568215600296-150x150.jpg)
A spectacular propaganda map of the South China Sea, issued in 1944 by the U.S. Navy. The map emphasizes the strategic significance of the South China Sea region as a source of raw materials, including “almost all of the world’s quinine; nine-tenths of the world’s rubber; one-half of the world’s tin and tungsten; and […]
A mammoth and colorful propaganda map of the North Pacific issued by the U.S. Navy near the end of World War II. This impressive, separately-published poster highlights events across the North Pacific, beginning with the Japanese strikes of late 1941 and early 1942. The attack on Pearl Harbor is highlighted, for example, by a depiction of […]
Thought to be the only known surviving complete example of a wall map made exclusively for the use of the Slovene Partisan High Command during the Second World War. From the estate of the Partisan general and war hero Ivan Maček. The map depicts the numerous Partisan military divisions across Slovenia and the eastern part […]