The guy at the flea market who taught me how to date old road maps

Back around 2015 at the Alameda Point Antiques Fair, this older fellow saw me flipping through a stack of maps and tapped my shoulder. He showed me how the fold pattern and the font on the highway numbers changed in 1968, and even pointed out a tiny printing date code hiding in the corner of one map. Has anyone else run into a random expert who just gave away their hard earned knowledge for free like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_lisa6d ago

The guy at the flea market who taught me how to date old road maps sounds like a hidden treasure. Reminds me of the time I tried to impress a date by identifying a vintage map's age based on its fold pattern. Yeah, that didn't go so well when I accidentally folded it wrong and tore a chunk off the corner. My date just stared at me like I'd committed a crime against cartography. But hey, at least now I can spot a 1960s Texaco map from across the room, even if my folding skills still suck.

blair_davis5d ago

The fold pattern thing is legit though, most people don't realize how much info you can get from that. You mighta botched that date but at least you learned something useful, which is more than you can say for most of my attempts at impressing people.