Category: Memorabilia

New Canada-Shaped Coin Released

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Royal Canadian Mint

This, believe it or not, is a coin—a coin in the shape of a map of Canada, with various animals forming the shape of each province and territory. The design was created by Ottawa illustrator Ali Giroux, who posted it online as a letterpress map. Then, as CBC News and CTV News report, the Royal Canadian Mint came calling.

Commemorative coins aren’t cheap. This one is made of three ounces of pure silver and sells for $340 (Canadian). It is being produced in a mintage of 2,000 and will ship in December.

(And yes, despite its weirdo shape, it is a real coin: the Queen is on the other side, a traditional, coin-shaped portrait embedded in the centre. It has a face value of $50, but that’s only if you want to use it to pay a bill or something, and who’d do that with this?)

A Hungarian Globe Puzzle

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Sometimes called a Rubik’s globe, though Rubik had nothing to do with it, this Hungarian-made globe puzzle from the 1980s, known variously as the Földgöm, Globus Gömb or Varázs Gömb, sometimes shows up on the lists of collectibles dealers. Consisting of a plastic core and tin surface pieces, the puzzle operates on two axes; the eight corners do not move. Jaap’s Puzzle Page has details on its origins and how to solve it, and also shows a couple of non-geographical globe puzzle variants. Here’s a short blog post from the Retro Game Museum (in Hungarian). And here’s an unboxing video from someone who bought a globe (bundled with a Rubik’s cube) on eBay. [Harvard Map Collection]

Waldseemüller Globe Ornament

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

I didn’t know Replogle made Christmas ornaments. I stumbled across the above, a Waldseemüller globe ornament—i.e., an ornament based on the Waldseemüller globe gores—while poking around my local map store for the first time in years. I bought the last one they had in stock. It’s 3¼″ (8.3 cm) in diameter, comes with a stand, and cost me all of $10. There’s apparently a Coronelli globe ornament as well.

No links to point you at. Amazon doesn’t stock them (though they have other globe ornaments, like this one and this one), and Replogle’s terrible website is Flash-only.

Miniature Maps and Minchiate

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The William P. Cumming Map Society’s North Carolina Map Blog has a post looking at miniature maps of North Carolina (“miniature” is defined as less than four inches in size) and a post about minchiate, a 16th-century Florentine card game; there were were educational minchiate decks with a map on each of the 97 cards. [WMS]

Two Kickstarters

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Two recent map-related Kickstarter campaigns:

  1. Modern Map Art Prints turns a map of a location of your choice into an abstract art print. Already funded.
  2. Map on Table aims to create a small (42×42 cm) table made up of a laser-cut metal map of New York, London or the world mounted on wooden legs (see above). Not yet funded; campaign runs until 17 October.

[The Verge, Mapping London]

An Error-Ridden Tube Map Shower Curtain

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Speaking of Londonist, they had a great deal of fun pedantically savaging a decidedly unofficial tube map shower curtain. “This error-ridden shower curtain was purchased via a random seller on ebay, whom we’re not going to gratify with a link. A bit of googling reveals that tube shower curtains are a bit of a thing. There are many variations out there, all presumably knocked together and marketed without permission from Transport for London.” (So much of a thing that I thought I’d linked to something like this before, but apparently not. No doubt my readers can send me links.)

Previously: Map Shower Curtain and Bikini; More Map Shower Curtains; Sea Monster Shower Curtain.

Great Circles in Cardboard

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
The Global Map (The Global Map Company, 1940). David Rumsey Map Collection.
The Global Map (The Global Map Company, ca. 1940). David Rumsey Map Collection.

The Global Map is a neat toy from the 1940s. The whole thing is just under one by two feet in area, and consists of two rotating hemispheres that touch at a single point, with the purpose of showing the shortest distance by air or sea between two points—a quick and dirty way of showing a great-circle route with a bit of cardboard and no math. From the David Rumsey Map Collection. [Maps on the Web]

Mini Metros

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

mini-metros

Mini Metros shrinks and simplifies 220 subway and light rail systems; the end result fits on a single sheet. Its creator, Peter Dovak, explains the challenge of making small and simple representations of sometimes inordinately complex transit systems:

All of the cities in the project had the same requirements: they had to fit in a 120px circle (with 10px of padding), the lines had to be 3px wide with a minimum of another 3px between the next parallel line, and all diagonals had to be 45-degrees. The systems themselves needed to be full-fledged heavy rail metro systems or light rail networks that were distinct enough from trolleys or streetcars.

Prints and mugs are available. [Maptitude]

Dymaxion Folding Globe

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

dymaxion-folding-globe

This morning’s post about the AuthaGraph World Map reminded me of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map (which after all was explicitly referenced by its creator). Designer Brendan Ravenhill has produced a version of Fuller’s map in the form of a magnetic folding globe. Wired: “Like Fuller’s original map, Ravenhill’s globe can exist in two or three dimensions. Laid flat, it’s a series of 20 triangles that show Fuller’s projection as a single landmass. The back of each triangle features a magnet so you can fold the map into an angular globe. ‘Really it’s a toy, but a toy that has a lot of resonance and importance,’ Ravenhill says.” $15 each, in three colours. [Sociative GIS]

Wonderground Map Calendar

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

wonderground-calendarHere’s a coincidence for you. On Saturday, the day after I posted about an exhibition of MacDonald Gill’s pictorial maps, I discovered, while shopping at a local stationery store, that there was such a thing as a MacDonald Gill Wonderground Map of London calendar. (It’s also available on Amazon.)

Previously: MacDonald Gill Exhibition in San Diego; MacDonald Gill’s Wonderground Map.

Sea Monster Shower Curtain

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

sea-monster-curtain

Retired graphic designer Don Moyer is producing a sea monster shower curtain, inspired by the iconic beasties found on early modern European maps and based on a sea monster print he created last year. It’s a Kickstarter project, but since it’s already been funded, it’s definitely happening. So if your world map shower curtain is beginning to fray, here’s an alternative. [Mental Floss]