Picked a 200 year old map of a fake island over a modern one of my own town

I was at an estate sale last month outside Portland and had to choose between two maps. One was a 1980s road map of Portland itself, nice condition. The other was this weird 1820s chart of an island called "Hy Brasil" off the coast of Ireland that doesn't even exist. I grabbed the fake island map for $35. Got it home and the cartographer basically just drew a circle with some castles and wrote "here be monsters" in the corner. Framed it in my hallway and now every visitor asks if it's real. I tell them no and they get confused. Has anyone else bought a map of something that never existed?

3 comments

3 Comments

paul_webb451mo ago

@beth_baker69 you’re missing the point. A fake island with castles and monsters is way more fun than a 1980s road map that’s useless now anyway. Nobody wants to navigate with something that old, it’s just going to have closed roads and outdated names. At least the fake one makes people stop and think for a second. Bet the Portland map just collects dust in a box.

beth_baker691mo ago

Here be monsters" is about the least interesting thing on an old map, honestly. Most of those old charts had some kind of decorative flourish, and that phrase is the most cliche version of it. A framed fake island sounds more like a conversation piece than a map, and I'd rather have the 80s road map to actually navigate with.

andrew9161mo ago

$35 for a map with "here be monsters" written on it? That seems like a lot for a joke that gets old after the first guest asks about it. I get that people like weird stuff for their walls, but an 80s Portland map would actually be useful if you ever wanted to see how the city changed over time. The fake island thing is just a decoration that will probably make people think you are trying too hard to be quirky. Most estate sale maps go for like $5 or $10, so whoever sold it saw you coming from a mile away. Honestly, buying a map of something that never existed sounds more like a mistake than a find, especially when you could have grabbed something real with actual history.