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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 5444871, member: 110350&quot;]I wouldn&#039;t call myself a &quot;collector&quot; of old books per se -- I just like to buy them now and then when they appeal to me, pursuant to no particular plan, although I do have a fondness for reference books (including almanacs and encyclopedias), travel books (Baedeker&#039;s and others), intact atlases when I can find them (I also have a collection of old maps), 19th century etiquette books and household guides, 19th century Japanese woodblock print books (and woodblock prints alone), plus old medical books and books on human behavior. I started doing that in my mid-teens, so in the last (almost) 50 years, I&#039;ve managed to accumulate hundreds of books published in the 18th and 19th centuries.</p><p><br /></p><p>The oldest illustration <u>from</u> a book I have is the (hand-colored) woodcut on the page on France from the <i>Weltchronik</i> of Hartmann Schedel, usually known in English as the <i>Nuremberg Chronicle, </i>published in 1493. It&#039;s certainly one of the best-known incunabula (i.e., printed books published before 1500). I have it framed on a wall, so I took this photo through the glass. Note that there are two small boats in the pond, so the woodcut technically meets the strictures of this thread:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237036[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>I probably have more than a dozen maps and city views taken from atlases that were published in the 1500s and 1600s, mostly so-called &quot;miniature maps.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s one that&#039;s not technically a miniature map, a city view taken from a book published in 1549, showing the city of Freiburg in Breisgau, which is located in southern Baden but belonged to the Habsburgs for a long time. Part of my family probably lived there before Jews were expelled from Freiburg in the mid-1400s; a number of them, including my great-great-grandparents, moved back after Jews were &quot;emancipated&quot; and the ban was lifted in the 1860s, 400 years later.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237037[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s a map of &quot;Modern Rome&quot; by Mallet, also from an atlas, published in 1683. Note the tiny illustrations of the Colosseum and other structures:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237043[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The oldest complete atlas I have dates from 1795, and the oldest complete books of any kind all date from the 1700-1750 period.</p><p><br /></p><p>The oldest coin book I have, <i>An Essay on Medals</i> by John Pinkerton, dates from 1784, and is substantially devoted to ancient coins:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237046[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Sadly, it has no illustrations. But here are the first eight pages of the price guide at the back of the book. (Note the prices given on the second page for the Eid Mar, in both gold and silver.)</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237051[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237052[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237053[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1237054[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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